Assessing the reliability of the borderline regression method as a standard setting procedure for objective structured clinical examination

Background: one of the methods used for standard setting is the borderline regression method (brm). this study aims to assess the reliability of brm when the pass-fail standard in an objective structured clinical examination (osce) was calculated by averaging the brm standards obtained for each station separately. materials and methods: in nine stations of the osce with direct observation the examiners gave each student a checklist score and a global score. using a linear regression model for each station, we calculated the checklist score cut-off on the regression equation for the global scale cut-off set at 2. the osce pass-fail standard was defined as the average of all station’s standard. to determine the reliability, the root mean square error (rmse) was calculated. the r² coefficient and the inter-grade discrimination were calculated to assess the quality of osce. results: the mean total test score was 60.78. the osce pass-fail standard and its rmse were 47.37 and 0.55, respectively. the r² coefficients ranged from 0.44 to 0.79. the inter-grade discrimination score varied greatly among stations. conclusion: the rmse of the standard was very small indicating that brm is a reliable method of setting standard for osce, which has the advantage of providing data for quality assurance.