This article provides an overview of the Hofstee standard-setting method and illustrates several situations where the Hofstee method will produce undefined cut scores. The situations where the cut scores will be undefined involve cases where the line segment derived from the Hofstee ratings does not intersect the score distribution curve based on…

This article illustrates five different methods for estimating Angoff cut scores using item response theory (IRT) models. These include maximum likelihood (ML), expected a priori (EAP), modal a priori (MAP), and weighted maximum likelihood (WML) estimators, as well as the most commonly used approach based on translating ratings through the test…

Large-scale assessment results for schools, school boards/districts, and entire provinces or states are commonly reported as the percentage of students achieving a standard--that is, the percentage of students scoring above the cut score that defines the standard on the assessment scale. Recent research has shown that this method of reporting is…