Determining defensible cut-off scores for dental courses

Area of Science:

• Dental Education
• Medical Education Assessment
• Standard-Setting Methods

Background:

• Many institutions, including Saudi universities, use a fixed 60% passing score for all courses.
• This fixed score may not accurately reflect student competency across different subjects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine appropriate cut-off scores for five major dental courses using the Angoff method.
• To evaluate the validity of a fixed 60% passing score in dental education.

Main Methods:

• The Angoff method was applied by four expert raters to final examinations in Endodontics, Operative Dentistry, Removable and Fixed Prosthodontics, and Pedodontics.
• Data were collected from two consecutive academic years (2015 and 2016) involving 120 and 142 students, respectively.

Main Results:

• Cut-off scores varied significantly across the five dental courses and between the two academic years.
• For example, Endodontics had cut-off scores of 74.22% (2015) and 74.31% (2016), while Pedodontics had 47.42% (2015) and 50.5% (2016).

Conclusions:

• The Angoff method produced different cut-off scores than the fixed 60% passing score.
• This evidence-based approach can lead to substantial differences in pass-fail rates, highlighting the need for course-specific standard-setting in dental programs.