Psychometric Evaluation of the Cardiology Certification Exam of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology.

Background: The Cardiology Certification Exam is issued annually by the Brazilian Cardiology Society and set and applied by the Judging Committee for the Cardiologist Title (CJTEC). The psychometric analysis of the exam items using the Item Response Theory (IRT) may provide robust data that can help in the continuous improvement of this instrument.

Objectives: To evaluate the psychometric properties of the 2019 Cardiology Certification Exam in relation to the IR parameters.

Methods: This was an observational study, with psychometric analysis of the 120 questions of the exam taken by 1,120 candidates for the title of Cardiologist in 2019.

Results: The IRT analysis revealed that 32.2% of the items had a "high" or "very high" discriminating power, 49.2% were categorized as "easy" or "very easy", and 41.5% showed a high probability of a correct guessing. Sixty-nine deficient items in terms of the IRT parameters were identified, which were then considered poorly effective in evaluating the candidate's ability.

Conclusions: The psychometric analysis of the 2019 Cardiology Certification Exam by the IRT revealed a high percentage of easy questions, with nearly two thirds of the items with a high probability of correct guessing. These data may serve as a basis for a series of discussions and proposals for the elaboration of future certificate exams in Cardiology.