BACKGROUND Examinations are necessary for assessment of student proficiency in medical education, but comparison of achievement across different cohorts in different tests is challenging. We applied psychometric test equating methods to compare student proficiency in two different examinations for a clinical anesthesiology course. METHODS Each examination contained 50 multiple choice items an...

This study proposes an empirical ensemble equating (3E) approach that collectively selects, adopts, weighs, and combines outputs from different sources to take combine advantage of techniques in various score intervals. The idea was demonstrated tailored the Non-Equivalent groups with Anchor Test (NEAT) equating. A simulation based on several publish...

This research evaluated the effectiveness of identifying students’ real gains through the application of four commonly used equating methods: concurrent calibration (CC) equating, fixed common item parameter (FCIP) equating, Stocking and Lord test characteristic curve (TCC) equating, and mean/sigma (M/S) equating. The performance of the four procedures was evaluated using simulated data for a t...

According to the equating guidelines, a set of common items should be a mini version of the total test in terms of content and statistical representation (Kolen & Brennan, 2004). Differences between vertical scaling and equating would suggest that these guidelines may not apply to vertical scaling in the same way that they apply to equating. This study investigated how well the guideline of con...