ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how higher education professionals and faculty, institutional researchers, and students in higher education administration programs with the concept of a cut score, how they may be used, how they are determined, and how evaluations of their validity can be conducted. In the postsecondary setting, the two most common uses for cut scores are for admission decisions and placement decisions. The chapter presents information about the individual components of the standard-setting process. Cut scores cannot be obtained by using a statistical formula. The facilitator is a person with specific skills and training in standard-setting and has the ability to train the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to perform an unfamiliar task, elicit full participation from each participant, and ensure no one participant or set of participants dominates the process. The SMEs should be knowledgeable about the examinee population, and the skills and knowledge that are required of examinees in relation to the decisions being made.
