The FRCA examination is a high-stake, summative assessment that has the potential to impact careers and patient safety. The format of the examinations is approved by the General Medical Council as a means of ensuring anaesthetists in training have the appropriate minimum level of knowledge and skills to progress to the next stage of their training programme. The processes that underpin pass/fail decisions therefore must be robust, consistent and fair.
The principle of standard setting is to set the pass mark for an examination against a criterion-referenced standard by determining the minimum level of knowledge and/or skills required to pass an examination. There are several recognised standard setting processes used in high-stake medical examinations, and different examination formats lend themselves to different standard setting methods. The FRCA examination uses both test-centred and examinee-centred standard setting methods.
