The incorporation of empirical item difficulty data into the Angoff standard-setting procedure

This study represents an attempt at incorporating empirical item difficulty data into the Angoff standard-setting procedure without affecting the subjective judgment of the raters. The Rasch-model ability level corresponding to minimal competence was estimated for each of 536 items on the American Association of State Social Work Boards (AASSWB) social work licensure examinations from their empirical calibrations and Angoff ratings. The mean of these estimates for all items on a given examination was taken as the level of minimal competence of the entire examination. This procedure yielded raw passing scores that were 4 to 6 items lower (out of 150) and pass rates that were 7% to 15% higher than those obtained using the "standard" Angoff procedure.