RESEARCH LIBRARY

Academic Medicine: April 2018 - Volume 93 - Issue 4 - p 636-641

Increasing criticism of maintenance of certification (MOC) examinations has prompted certifying boards to explore alternative assessment formats. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of allowing test takers to access reference material while completing their MOC Part III standardized examination.

Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, 16:1, 59-70

This article critically reviews how diagnostic models have been conceptualized and how they compare to other approaches used in educational measurement. In particular, certain assumptions that have been taken for granted and used as defining characteristics of diagnostic models are reviewed and it is questioned whether these assumptions are the reason why these models have not had the success in operational analyses and large-scale applications, contrary to what many have hoped.

Med Educ, 52: 359-361

Focusing specifically on examples set in the context of movement from Bachelor's level undergraduate programmes to enrolment in medical school, this publication argues that a great deal of what happens on college campuses today, curricular and otherwise, is (in)directly driven by the not‐so‐invisible hand of the medical education enterprise.

Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 37: 40-45

This simulation study demonstrates that the strength of item dependencies and the location of an examination systems’ cut‐points both influence the accuracy (i.e., the sensitivity and specificity) of examinee classifications. Practical implications of these results are discussed in terms of false positive and false negative classifications of test takers.

The authors examined the extent to which USMLE scores relate to the odds of receiving a disciplinary action from a U.S. state medical board.

Qual Life Res 27, 1711–1720 (2018)

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as part of its regulatory mission, is charged with determining whether a clinical outcome assessment (COA) is “fit for purpose” when used in clinical trials to support drug approval and product labeling. This paper provides a review (and some commentary) on the current state of affairs in COA development/evaluation/use with a focus on one aspect: How do you know you are measuring the right thing? In the psychometric literature, this concept is referred to broadly as validity and has itself evolved over many years of research and application.