Sample Score Roster

	NATIONAL BOARD OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS Subject Examination Program Pathology Subject Examination Score Interpretation Guide
NBME subject examinations provide medical schools with a tool for measuring examinees' understanding of the basic sciences. Questions on the Pathology Subject Examination were written and reviewed by national test committees preparing material for Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination®. Prior to publication, test forms are reviewed by a panel of directors of pathology courses. While these exams are designed to be broadly appropriate as part of overall examinee assessment, since course objectives vary across schools, the congruence between subject examination content and course objectives should be considered when interpreting test scores and determining grading standards. Specifically, subject examination scores should not be used alone, but rather in conjunction with other indicators of examinee performance in determination of grades.

Subject Examination Scores

The subject examination score is scaled to have a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100 for a group of 7,301 first-time takers from 37 U.S. LCME-accredited medical schools who took the Pathology Subject Examination as an end-of-course exam under standard testing conditions during the 2002-03 and 2003-04 academic years. The vast majority of scores range from 200 to 800. This scale provides a useful tool for comparing the scores of your examinees with those of a large, nationally representative group taking the subject examination as an end-of-course assessment.

The subject examination scores are statistically equated across test administrations. Scores are statistically adjusted for shifts in test difficulty and consequently, can be used to track school and student performance over time.

Precision of Scores

Measurement error is present on all tests, and the standard error (SEM) provides an index of the (im)precision of scores. The SEM indicates how far the score an examinee earns on the examination is likely to stray from the candidate’s “true” proficiency level. The SEM is approximately 35 points for the Pathology Subject Examination scores. Using the SEM, it is possible to calculate a score interval that indicates how much a score might vary across repeated testing using different sets of items covering the same content. An interval that will encompass about two thirds of the observed scores for a given true score may be found by adding the SEM to a score and subtracting it from that score. For example, if a examinee’s true proficiency on the examination is 500, the score he/she achieved on the examination will usually (two times out of three) fall between 465 and 535 (500 - 35 and 500 + 35), which rounds to between 470 and 540 on the reported score scale.

Score Feedback

Summary information on the examinee group tested, exam purpose and number of items scored is provided on each page of the feedback.

If two or more examinees were tested, Scaled Score Descriptive Statistics for reported scores, including the mean, standard deviation, the lowest and highest scores for the examinees tested is provided.

The Roster of Scaled Scores reports a total test Pathology Subject Examination score and content area subscores (if available) for each examinee. Reported scores also appear in a comma separated text file that can be downloaded and used to export scores.

If two or more examinees were tested, a Frequency Distribution of the total scaled score is provided. The distribution shows the number and percentage of examinees with each score, together with the cumulative frequency and percentage.

Keyword Phrase Item Analysis

If ten or more examinees were tested, a Keyword Phrase Item Analysis Report is provided. This report provides a keyword phrase describing the content of each item on the examination, along with the proportion of the examinees from your school and a projected proportion of examinees nationally that answered each item correctly.

Norms

Two sets of norms are provided to aid in the interpretation of student performance. These norms reflect the performance of first-time taker students from LCME-accredited medical schools who took the exam as an end-of-course exam.

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