Table 2.
Item difficulty and discrimination parameters fitted by Xcalibre to the candidate by station data for PACES. The three separate borderlines for the four points on the mark scale are shown separately. Figures in brackets are standard errors of the estimates. The five examination stations are shown at the top, ranked from most to least difficult on the fail-pass criterion. The two stations at the bottom, in bold, are the communication stations.
| Difficulty | Discrimination | |||||
| Station | Clear Fail-Fail | Fail-Pass | Pass-Clear Pass | Clear Fail-Fail | Fail-Pass | Pass-Clear Pass |
| 3a Cardiovascular | -2.60 (.042) | -0.45 (0.028) | 1.56 (0.032) | 0.65 (0.021) | 0.58 (0.031) | 0.60 (0.023) |
| 3b Neurological | -2.37 (.037) | -0.65 (0.025) | 1.43 (0.029) | 0.80 (0.022) | 0.70 (0.027) | 0.68 (0.023) |
| 1b Abdomen | -2.64 (.043) | -0.68 (.027) | 1.39 (0.031) | 0.67 (0.021) | 0.61 (0.028) | 0.62 (0.024) |
| 1a Respiratory | -2.77 (.045) | -0.85 (.026) | 1.13 (0.026) | 0.69 (.022) | 0.67 (0.026) | 0.70 (0.024) |
| 5 Other | -2.92 (.048) | -1.00 (0.028) | 1.66 (0.034) | 0.73 (0.023) | 0.61 (0.026) | 0.56 (0.023) |
| 2 History | -2.47 (.039) | -0.79 (0.024) | 1.39 (0.031) | 0.81 (0.022) | 0.73 (0.026) | 0.61 (0.024) |
| 4 Communication & Ethics | -2.36 (.036) | -0.85 (0.023) | 1.16 (0.028) | 0.89 (0.023) | 0.79 (0.025) | 0.64 (0.023) |