The standard or pass mark is set in reference to the content and the difficulty of the examination questions. The standard is set by a panel of content experts (all Canadian Registered Safety Professionals) from across Canada who work closely with the Board’s examination consultants, Assessment Strategies Inc. to ensure that the examination meets the Examination Blueprint guidelines.

The pass mark is set at a level that represents the performance expected of a competent safety professional.

The standard setting method used to establish the pass mark for the CRSPEX is the Angoff technique. Using this technique, the panel of content experts reviews each examination question and produces ratings based on a common understanding of a competent safety professional. In addition to these ratings, a variety of relevant data (for example, information on the preparation of candidates, data on results from previously administered examinations) are carefully considered to ensure the standard that candidates must achieve on the examination is valid and fair. Based on this information, an appropriate standard or pass mark is set.

Once an acceptable standard has been determined on a form of the examination, a statistical procedure can be performed to establish a corresponding standard on subsequent forms of the examination. This procedure, known as Test Equating, takes into account the difficulty of the set of questions on the original and subsequent forms as well as any differences that exists in candidate performance.

The pass mark of the original form is then carried forward and adjusted to reflect the differences in content difficulty and candidate performance on the new form of the examination. This statistical procedure ensures that all candidates, regardless of which examination form they write, must achieve an equivalent standard to successfully pass the examination.