It is widely accepted that standard setting methods aim to distinguish between competent and incompetent examinees who sit for a test or an examination (these terms are used interchangeably). Hans Pant and colleagues describe standard setting as an umbrella term that incorporates consensual approaches of panels of experts to set discrete cut scores on continuous test performance scales.

This description regards standard setting as a consensual decision-making process, which translates the cumulative understanding of decision makers of what constitutes competence and incompetence to establish a discrete cut score on a continuous scale, aiming to separate the competent from the incompetent. However, others regard standard setting as a decision-making process aiming to establish a cut score that is the boundary between acceptable and nonacceptable performance; that is, ...