A Comparison of Group and Independent Standard Setting.

ABSTRACT A group-process approach to standard setting was compared to an independent approach for a medical specialty certification examination. Both approaches used the Angoff (1971) standard-setting method. In the group-process method, reviewers discussed items and their ratings during the rating process; in the independent condition, reviewers provided their ratings in isolation. The effects of having previous exposure to the group-process condition or the independent condition, the effects of knowing other reviewers initial ratings, and the cost effectiveness of the procedures were studied. Participants were 10 subject matter specialists, 5 in each condition. Reviewers in the independent condition made original ratings and then submitted a second rating after they were notified of ratings provided by other reviewers (the "with-information" condition). The results demonstrated fairly large, although nonsignificant, differences in results obtained by group and independent reviewers using the same standard-setting method on identical test content. Although the differences were not statistically significant, a substantial effect on pass-fail decisions was noted. A reviewer's "with information" rating could be fairly well predicted by knowledge of the reviewer's original rating and knowledge of the group mean. Both independent conditions were more economically feasible for the small-panel situation in that they appeared to require a smaller time commitment from participants. (Contains 11 tables and 11 references.) (SLD)