Description and impact of using a standard-setting method for determining pass/fail scores in a surgery clerkship.
BACKGROUND
Research on performance evaluation highlights the importance of using multiple measures to develop an accurate profile of students, yet we found no literature describing the use of a standard-setting method for determining a pass/fail cutoff for a clerkship based on multiple assessment methods.


METHODS
Steps in setting an absolute standard for a pass/fail grade are described. The new cut-off score was used to compare what decisions would have been made had it been applied in previous clerkships.


RESULTS
We successfully applied the Hofstee method to ascertain a new standard pass/fail cutoff for our total surgery clerkship score. Had this absolute score been used in 4 prior clerkships, 150 instead of 152 would have passed the clerkship, and 10 instead of 8 would have failed the clerkship.


CONCLUSIONS
A standard-setting method can be applied to a final clinical clerkship grade even when multiple performance measures are used.
Schindler
Nancy
N
Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA. nschindler@enh.org
Corcoran
Julia
J
DaRosa
Debra
D
D002982:Clinical Clerkship / Q000592:standards*; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000592:standards; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000592:standards*; D013502:General Surgery / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D012015:Reference Standards; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000592:standards; D013337:Students, Medical