What is the Thresholds feature?

The thresholds feature helps customers align their decision-making process and framework with our language certification scores. Using the Thresholds feature, you can add labels to specific score ranges on our TrueNorth Scale or the CEFR equivalencies. 

These threshold labels are presented on the assessments results table, allowing you to sort and filter by these labels. The threshold labels are also included in the data downloads and score data packet for those using our Enterprise API.

Why should I use the Thresholds feature?

Our customers use our language certification scores to make important people-decisions. 

These decisions include but aren’t limited to:

• Hiring applicants for a job

• Increasing team members’ responsibilities, including promotions or raises

• Placing students of similar ability into cohorts in your language program

• Determining how to help students progress within you language program

For each of these use cases, our customers need the ability to translate our TrueNorth scores and accompanying CEFR equivalency levels into their process to make these decisions more efficiently and consistently. 

There are multiple reasons why your organization will benefit from using the Thresholds feature to label the score ranges that you use to make its decisions:

• You want to make it easier to see where test-takers fall within your decision-making framework when viewing the Emmersion score data.

• You have multiple administrators executing on these decisions across multiple departments or locations, and you want to ensure that they are being consistent.

• You want to make it easier to onboard new administrators to your process.

How do I set thresholds that work best for my organization?

We’ve worked with hundreds of organizations of all sizes, across industries, geographies, and use-cases for language screening and certification. We have data-driven recommendations for the thresholds that are right for your company. While you may choose any number of threshold score ranges and labels that match your needs, you may consider starting with one of the recommendations listed below.

When you are ready to set your thresholds within Emmersion’s administrative platform, you can reference our step-by-step guide here. 

Many of our customers choose to work with our psychometric team to conduct a custom calibration to set thresholds specific to their performance objectives. You can read more about the custom calibration services we offer in the next section.

3-tier thresholds: Most common based on customer and industry data (default)

Based on the data that we have collected and aggregated across our customers, we generally recommend that new organizations begin with a 3-tier threshold, with the following values and threshold labels.  

• Insufficient — These candidates’ language abilities are likely insufficient for most professional communication settings, whether internal or customer-facing.

• May Have Potential — These candidates ability to communicate will be situation and context dependent in professional settings and may need additional training and help.

• Qualified — These candidates are generally capable of communicating effectively in professional settings.

4-tier thresholds: Differentiating advanced from qualified candidates

Some of our customers need to differentiate between qualified candidates to identify those that have advanced abilities to communicate about advanced or specific topics, such as finance or legal issues. We’ve aggregated the data from these customers to recommend the following 4-tier thresholds: 

• Advanced — These candidates’ language abilities are strong and flexible, making them capable of communicating effectively in virtually all professional settings when they have the necessary domain knowledge.

2-tier thresholds: Proceed / do not proceed with large volumes of applicants

While we don’t typically recommend only using a 2-tier threshold approach, some of our customers need the most simple framework to make decisions. Often, these are used by customers that have high volumes of applicants and can afford to be more aggressive in turning away low or unqualified candidates. We’ve aggregated the data from these customers to recommend the following 2-tier thresholds: 

Custom calibration

The organizations that are most successful with the Thresholds feature are the ones that work with our success team to run an internal custom calibration. Through this calibration, they are able to determine the number and score ranges of their threshold bands that align specifically with their outcomes. 

In this process, we work with you to determine and collect data for your most important outcomes. Some common outcomes include, but aren’t limited to:

• Screening applicants’ language ability to predict high customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores

• Screening applicants’ language ability to predict improved employee retention

• Certifying employees’ language ability to qualify them for higher-demand clients

• Certifying employees’ language ability for reskilling, upskilling, or promotions

Our psychometricians can take data surrounding your most important outcomes and combine them with the language data from our AI algorithms to determine the custom thresholds that best align to your outcomes. 

Schedule a meeting with our team to get started with your customer calibration