Score reports meet the needs of examinees and faculty when the correct inferences can be drawn. NBME receives feedback about scoring and uses that feedback as input to its continuous improvement efforts. Award winning NBME psychometrician Carol Morrison recently published a paper with additional NBME staff members Linette Ross, Gregory Baker, and Marie Maranki in Medical Science Educator about this very topic.
“Implementing a New Score Scale for the Clinical Science Subject Examinations: Validity and Practical Considerations” first received praise when it was presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting in 2017 and was awarded the Established Investigator Award for Division I (Education in the Professions). Carol was presented with the award in April of 2018, with revisions to the paper and publication taking place in June of 2019.
NBME implemented a new score scale in 2015 for the clinical science subject examinations, to better meet the needs of medical school faculty and students. Response thus far has been positive, with users finding the new scale much more intuitive. The hope is that this paper will demonstrate a practical application of this score type, which is seldom discussed in the health professions literature, and will allow others to explore its utility for their examination programs.
You can read the full paper here.
