Recommending cut scores with a subset of items: An empirical illustration

Many testing programs face the practical challenge of having limited resources to conduct comprehensive standard setting studies. Some researchers have suggested that replicating a group’s recommended cut score on a full-length test may be possible by using a subset of the items. However, these studies were based on simulated data. This study describes a standard setting application using two independent panels providing judgments on a 300-item licensure test. Specifically, one panel provided judgments on all 300 items; whereas the second panel made judgments on a randomly-selected subset of 150 items. Both panels also participated in an alternate standard setting method to evaluate panel comparability. Results suggest caution for practitioners considering using subsets of items for standard setting studies. Accessed 7,224 times on https://pareonline.net from May 11, 2010 to December 31, 2019. For downloads from January 1, 2020 forward, please click on the PlumX Metrics link to the right

Career Counseling at the Universities: The Bangladesh Scenario

In the backdrop of growing diversity of educational programs and jobs this paper looks into the needs and realities of career counseling at the university level with particular reference to the public and private universities of Bangladesh. A sample of 72 universities was taken by random selection for the study. Qualitative data for six aspects of career counseling viz., existence of career counseling center, presence of professional career counselor, arrangement of career fair or job fair, internship placement services, job placement services, and existence of alumni association were then collected from the websites of these universities and/or over phone as was necessary. Collected data were analyzed using the statistical tools of tabulation, proportions, and chart. It was found that half of the universities of Bangladesh – both public and private – virtually do not have career counseling programs. The universities of Bangladesh need to recognize the importance of career counseling and employ attention and efforts in pertinent activities for their own interest

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Item Response Theory-based approaches for computing cut scores from an Angoff -based standard setting study

Even when the scoring of the examination is based on Item Response Theory, standard setting methods seldom use this information directly when determining the cut score for the examination from an Angoff-based standard setting study. Typically, the item performance estimates provided by the judges are simply added, regardless of the item parameter estimates for these items. Once these individual judges\u27 totals are determined they are averaged across judges to determine the recommend cut score for the examination. When IRT scoring is used, this total score on the test can be converted to an IRT-based theta ability estimate by using the test characteristic curve. The purpose of this study was to investigate two approaches and its variations to determining the cut score from an Angoff-based standard setting study when the test questions have been calibrated using IRT methods. The first approach (called the Judge Theta Approach) converted the judges\u27 item performance estimates (i.e., probability of correct response) to a theta estimate based on a 3PL IRT model. These theta estimates were then combined in various ways to calculate the cut score. The second approach (called the Simulated Item Vector Approach) used 0/1 values for each item that was determined from the judges\u27 item performance estimates. Again, these 0/1 values were then used a variety of ways to generate a 3PL IRT-based cut score. Both variations of Judge Theta and variations 2 and 3 of Simulated Item Vector approach produced promising results

Training program effectiveness of service initiators: measuring perception of female employees of bank using logistic approach

Banking sector is one of the vital parts of the financial sector that has significant influence in the economy of Bangladesh. Due to lack of skilled manpower, banks often fail to generate quality services to the customers which can be an obstacle for the growth of this sector. Therefore, training programs are conducted for the employees in order to improve their skills for providing quality service activities. This study aims to assess the female employee’s perception of increased services after participating in the training program. Female employees were chosen due to its dominance in providing few banking services. Samples were collected from female employees working in different banks using the simple random technique. For investigating how different variables influence the dichotomous dependent variable Logit model has been implemented. The ultimate outcomes of the study have demonstrated that effective training program is influenced by few factors that have an impact on the performance of the female employees. Keywords: Training effectiveness, Logistic Approach, perception of female employees