[The European Board Examination in Otorhinolaryngology as a high-quality test instrument: psychometric measures in a...

The European Board Examination in Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery (EBEORL-HNS) is a Europe-wide specialty examination consisting of a written multiple-choice test and a standardized oral examination. Only limited psychometric analyses have been published to date.

This study aimed to evaluate examination data from recent years and assess the formats regarding difficulty, reliability, and pass rates.

Aggregated data from 2013-2024 were analyzed. Mean scores, standard deviations, item difficulty, item discrimination, Cronbach's alpha, and Angoff's score were calculated. The written and oral parts were examined descriptively and comparatively.

The written examination demonstrated a mean difficulty of 67% (proportion of correctly answered items), a pass rate of 82%, and Cronbach's alpha of 0.83 (internal consistency). The passing cutoff (according to the Angoff method) was 59 points on average. The oral part showed a mean difficulty of 70%, a pass rate of 74%, and an average score of around 3.0 on a four-point scale. Year-to-year variability largely reflected differences in the international candidate cohorts.

The findings confirm that the EBEORL-HNS demonstrates stable psychometric quality. Compared to national specialty examinations, it offers high transparency and clearly defined quality criteria. Variations in performance appear more related to heterogeneous training backgrounds than to shortcomings of the assessment tools.