2023 Volume 39 Issue 1 Pages 3-9
Abstract Medical and dental faculties have conducted common achievement tests since 2005 to assure the public and society of the quality of graduates. Computer based testing (CBT), one of the pre-clinical examinations in the common achievement tests, can be administered and evaluated fairly at different times and locations. The IRT standard score of CBT is used for grading, and may be related to passing or failing the National Dental Examination administered after completing a clinical clerkship. Therefore, we evaluated the relationship between the IRT standard score of CBT and passing or failing the National Dental Examination for new graduate students at Kyushu Dental University.
The results showed that the pass rate of the examination was 87.3%. The mean IRT standard score was significantly higher for those who passed the examination than those who failed it. In addition, all respondents with IRT standard scores of 620 or higher passed the examination. The IRT standard score, which serves as the cutoff for passing or failing the examination, was 493.0. The number of CBT attempts was significantly higher among those who failed the examination. The pass rate of the examination among holdovers was 60.4%, which was lower than that among non-holdovers (90.5%).
These results indicate that IRT standard scores are correlated to passing or failing the examination.
