Institute for Safety and Health Management

Cut Scores

As part of our ongoing effort to achieve accreditation for the CSHM designation, the Board of Directors continues to focus on setting the standards for the CSHM examination. On February 10th 2006, a group of CSHM’s met in Chicago to work with a consultant on a Cut Score analysis for the certification exam. In addition to some of the Board members there were safety professionals from around the Chicago area who volunteered their time to help with this project. Our consultant, Dr Lynn Webb, led the group through the process by using the Modified Angoff approach. With this process the group had to first build a consensus definition of basic competence. On Friday evening we developed a group definition of basic competence that we believe all exam candidates with 2-5 years of experience should possess.

Certification examinations are criterion referenced rather than norm referenced. Grading on a curve is an exam of norm referencing. With Criterion referencing you have criterion to meet and everyone can pass or everyone can fail. Criterion is set through an item rating process where the candidate with just enough knowledge and skill for competent management may pass the examination The group took all of the current examination questions and all pool questions and rated them. For each question we had to ask ourselves: “What percentage of competent people taking this exam would know the correct answer based on their background and experience.?” Approximately 400 questions were analyzed in this way and the consultant will take the results and compile them to determine the mean score and the standard deviation for scores. If there are “outliers” or people who fell outside the standard deviation of the mean score, this would not show consensus among the group.

This was a long and arduous process but will better help us deliver an examination that meets accreditation standards. After the consultant compiles our scores and analyzes them we will meet to discuss her findings and to determine the passing score for the examination.