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Item Analysis and Validation

Item analysis is a statistical technique used to evaluate the quality of test items based on difficulty and discrimination indices. The purpose is to select effective items, identify defects, and highlight areas needing improvement for students and instructors. The document outlines how to calculate difficulty and discrimination indices, providing examples and guidelines for interpreting the results.

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9 views21 pages

Item Analysis and Validation

Item analysis is a statistical technique used to evaluate the quality of test items based on difficulty and discrimination indices. The purpose is to select effective items, identify defects, and highlight areas needing improvement for students and instructors. The document outlines how to calculate difficulty and discrimination indices, providing examples and guidelines for interpreting the results.

Uploaded by

arabellaalburo24
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ITEM ANALYSIS

AND
VALIDATION
Reporter :

Evia , Renalyn
WHAT IS ITEM
ANALYSIS ?

It is statistical technique which is used for selecting and


rejecting the items of the test on the basis of their difficulty
values and discrimination power.
Item analysis is the process of analyzing student responses
to individual exam questions to evaluate exam quality. It is a
tool used by educators to uphold test effectiveness and
fairness.
PURPOSE OF ITEM ANALYSIS
To select the best available items for the final form of
the test.
To identify structural or content defects in the items .
To detect learning difficulties of the class as a whole.
To identify the areas of weakness of students in need of
remediation.
To increasre instructors skill in the test contruction .
To identify specific areas of course which need greater
emphasis or clarity.
ITEAM DIFFICULTY
INDEX
Definition : Measures how many students answer the
item correctly , expressed as a percentage .

Formula : number of students with correct answer


------------------------------------------------------
total number of student
Interpretation :
High percentage = Easy item
Low percentage = Difficult item
EXAMPLE :

what is the item difficulty index of an item if 25


students are unable to answer it correctly while 75
answered it correctly ?

Here , the total number of students is 100 , hence ,


the item difficulty index is 75 / 100 or 75 %.
EXAMPLE OF
DIFFICULTY INDEX
Example 1 : 75 out of 100 students anwered
correctly - Difficulty Index = 75 % ( Easy )
Example 2 : 25 out of 100 students anwered
correctly - Difficulty Index = 25% ( Difficult )
One problem with this type of difficulty index is that it
may not actually indicate that the item is difficult
( or easy ).
A student who does not know the subject matter will
naturally be unable to answer the item correctly even
if the question is easy .
How do we decide on the basis of this index whether
the item is to difficult or to easy ? The following
arbitrary rule is often used in the literature :
Range of
Difficulty Interpretation Action
Index

0 - 0. 25 Revise or
Difficulty
Discard
0.26 - 0.75 Right Difficulty Retain

0. 76 - above Easy Revise or


Discard
An easy way to derive such a measure is to measure
how difficult an item is with respect to those in the upper
25% of the class and how difficult it is with respect to
those in the lower 25%

If the upper 25% of the class found the item easy yet
the lower 25% found it difficult , then the item can
discriminate properly between these two groups .
DISCRIMINATION INDEX
Definition : Measures how well an item distinguishes
between high and low scorers.

Index of discrimination = DU - DL

( U - Upper group ; L - Lower group )


DU - Difficulty index for the upper 25% of the class
DL - Difficulty index for the lower 25% of the class
EXAMPLE :
Obtain the index of discrimination of an item.

If the upper 25% of the class had a difficulty index of


0.60 (i.e. 60% of the upper 25% got the correct answer)
while the lower 25% of the class had a difficulty index of
0.20.

Here , DU = 0.60 while DL = 0.20 , thus index of


dicrimination = 0.60 - 0.20 = 0.40
NOTE :
Theoretically , the index of discrimination
can range from - 1 .0 ( when DU = 0 and
DL = 1 ).
DISCRIMINATION INDEX
When the index of discrimination is equal to -1 , then
this means that all of the lower 25% of the students got
the wrong answer .
In a sense , such an index discriminates correctly between
the two groups but the item is highly questionable.

Why should the bright ones get the wrong answer and
the poor ones get the right answer?
DISCRIMINATION INDEX
On the other hand , if the index of discrimination is 1.0 , then
this means that all of the lower 25% failed to get the correct
answer while all of the upper 25% got the correct answer.

This is a perpectly discriminating item and is the ideal


item that should be included in the test.

The content of the item itself may be highly dubious . As in


the case of the index of difficulty , we have the following rule
of thumb:
Index Range Interpretation Action
Can discriminate
-1 .0 - -.50 Discard
but item is
questionable

-.55 - 0.45 Non - discriminating Revise

0.46 - 1.0 Discriminating


Include
item
EXAMPLE :
Consider a multiple choice type of test of which the
following data were obtained:
Iteam Options
A B* C D
0 40 20 20
0 15 5 0
0 5 10 4
Total
Upper 20%
Lower 20%
The correct reponse is B . Let us compute the
difficulty index and index of discrimination:

Difficulty Index = no. Of student getting correct response / total.


= 40 / 100 = 40% , within range of a “ good item “
The discrimination index can similarly be computed:

DL = no . of students in lower 75% with correct response /


no. of students in lower 25%
= 5/20 = .25 or 25%
The discrimination index can similarly be computed:

Discrimination Index = DU - DL = .75 - .25 = .50 or 50%

Thus , the item also has a “ good discriminating power”.


The discrimination index can similarly be computed:

It is also instructive to note that the distracter A is not an


effective distracters C and D appear to have a good
appeal as distracters.
THANK YOU !!!

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