Standard Setting in Student Assessment

Background introduction: Standard is defined as any measure by which one judges a thing as authentic, good, or adequate, or the degree to which it is authentic, good, or adequate. A standard setting process allows for variation in difficulty of an exam to be taken into consideration when deciding who pass and who fail Standard setting is employed to ensure that the student who passes an exam has mastered the core knowledge and /or competencies that are assessed by that exam,. Methods: (J) Brief description of general surgery course for the undergraduate and its assessment process, Revaluation of the different standards setting methods for use in this assessment process, (3) selection of the most appropriate method(s) for use in this process, giving reasons for this choice, (4)reflection on the advantages and disadvantages of implementing standards setting and (5) identification of any barriers to implementation and suggestions of how to overcome them. Discussions and Conclusions: The most appropriate methods for use in the assessment process and the reasons for my choice are described. Moreover, reflection was on advantages and disadvantages of implementing standards setting .There are some barriers to implementation such as unrealistic pass scores and unreasonable pass or failure rates, standard setting may be arbitrary, but need not be capricious insufficient number of experts and absence of policies that ensure standard setting especially criterion -referenced standards methods. To overcome these one would suggest to employ multiple experienced judges to set the standard and to attenuate the effects of hawks(overly rigorous examiners) and doves( somewhat more lenient examiners),to provide the examiners with actual examinee data( either past or present),the method followed should be fit for purpose; is based on informed judgment; demonstrates due diligence; is supported by research and is easily explained and implemented, to train/educate staff, provide theoretical and practical guidelines and to change culture of using the norm -referenced into criterion referenced to ensure patient safety.