2.  Item analysis techniques are
among the most valuable
tools classroom teachers use
in improving the quality of
their classroom tests.
Analyzing and using test item
data are focused in this
chapter.

3. As pointed out by Payne(1992), item analysis
is conducted for the following purposes:
 To select best available items for the final
form of the test;
 To identify structural or content defects in
the terms;
 To detect learning difficulties of the class as
a whole; and
 To identify the areas of weaknesses of
students in need of remediation.

4.  There are three main elements in
an item analysis. These elements
are as follows: examination of
the difficulty level of the items,
determination of the
discriminating power of each
item, and examination of the
effectiveness of distracters in a
multiple choice or matching
items.

5. Index of difficulty- the
difficulty level of an item
By index of difficulty is
meant the percentage of
students answering
correctly each item in the
test.

6. Index of discrimination-
refers to the percentage of
high-scoring individuals
responding correctly
versus the number of low-
scoring individuals
responding correctly to an
item.

8.  Preparing data for item analysis
of a classroom test involves
counting the number of
students in high and low-
scoring groups responding
correctly. This can be done by
asking students to raise their
hands on items which they
correctly answered.

10. Arrange test scores fron
highest to lowest. This is
based on the student’s
total score on the test.

11.  Get one-third of the papers from
the highest scores and the other
one-third from the lowest scores.
These two extreme sets of
examination papers are the
criterion groups. The fiest is the
upper group and the latter is the
lower group. The middele group is
not used in the analysis of the test
items.

12. Record separately the
number of times each
alternative was
chosen by the
students in both
groups.

13. Add the number of
correct answers to
each item made by
the combines upper
and lower groups.

14.  Compute the index of difficulty for each item,
following the formula:
Where:
IDF= index of difficulty
NRC= nimber of students responding correctly
to an item
TS= total number of students in the upper and
lower groups

15. Compute the index of discrimination, based on
the formula:
Where:IDN= index of discrimination
CU= number of correct responses of the upper
group
Cl= number of correct responses of the lower
group
NSG= number of students group

16. item group Answers
A B C
D
Total no.
of correct
answers
Difficulty
of index
H_L Discrimin
ation
index
1 H 20
L 20
3 14 2 1
10 7 3 0
21 52.5 7 0.35
2 H 20
L 20
0 0 18 2
0 32 9 8
27 67.5 9 0.45
3 H 20
L 20
4 8 4 4
10 2 4 4
10 25.0 6 0.30
4 H 20
L 20
3 3 4 10
2 4 10 4
14 35.0 6 0.30
5 H 20
L 20
15 2 2 1
1 10 4 5
16 40.0 14 0.70