Impact of one versus two content-specific modules on American board of family medicine certification examination scores

Abstract

Background: We consider the question of whether requiring diplomates to select only 1 content-specific module, rather than 2, would increase, decrease, or produce no change in scores among the examinee population. Methods: Examinees' scores were computed under 3 different conditions: the examination core plus (1) both modules, (2) the module on which they scored higher, and (3) the module on which they scored lower. Results: Although the differences in scores across the 3 conditions were relatively small, asking examinees to select only a single module would likely benefit more examinees than it would harm by a 4:1 ratio, assuming that the diplomates selected the module on which they scored higher. Only 114 of the 29,088 examinees (0.4%) would have changed from a pass to a fail, whereas 467 (1.6%) would have changed from fail to pass. Conclusion: These results suggest that having examinees select 1 module rather than 2 will likely produce a slight score increase for examinees. Simultaneously, it would improve the standardization of the examination across examinees.