Setting Performance Standards for Professional Licensure and Certification

Abstract

Credentialing programs were surveyed to ascertain the procedures that they use to set performance standards on multiple-choice and open-ended assessments. For multiple-choice assessments, these programs mostly employ variations on the Angoff (1971) standard-setting method. Procedures used with open-ended questions showed more divergence; some agencies use a question by question approach, whereas others utilize methods that consider the assessment results more holistically. Implications of these standard-setting practices from credentialing agencies to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), including the consequences of the assessment on the individual candidate, the matrix sampling construction of NAEP assessments, the multiple cutpoints of the NAEP assessment program, and the types of validity evidence that are typically gathered to support the validity of the performance standard, are discussed. Generalizations of these standard-setting methods from the field of professional licensure and certification should be made with caution.