Name of the Discussant: Olano, Mary Joy G.
Course, Year and Section: BSE-SST 2-2
Topic: Item Analysis Date:
Objectives:
At the end of the discussion, the students should be able to:
A. define the meaning of item analysis
B. differentiate item analysis, item difficulty and discrimination index
C. demonstrate on how to know if the item is valid with using the formula
I. Introduction
A test is to estimate performance across the full domain of learning outcomes you
have targeted. One way to assess how well your test is functioning for this purpose is to
look at how well the individual items do so, and item analysis gives you a way to
exercise additional quality control over your tests, it is also intended to assess and
improve the reliability of your tests. If test reliability is low, test validity will necessarily
also be low. This is the ultimate reason you do item analyses to improve the validity of a
test by improving its reliability.
II. Content
ITEM ANALYSIS
Item analysis - is a way to select the appropriate items for the final draft and
reject the poor items. It improves the questions for future test administrations.
The purpose of item analysis is to examining student’s responses to each item
and look into difficulty and discriminating ability of the item as well as the
effectiveness of each alternative. It is an important tool used for selecting and
rejecting items of the test based on their difficulty, too analyzed, and assessed
questions for student’s performance. Also, it’s an effective method not only in
the test but it can reveal important data.
Item difficulty- define the number of the students who are able to answer the
item correctly divided by the total numbers of the students. It is usually
expressed in percentage. Portrays the easiness of an item because the higher
percentage, the easier item.
Item difficulty (p) =R/T
R = number of the students who correctly answered the item.
T = number of students included for the analysis
Index Range Difficulty Level
0-0.20 Very Difficult
0.21-0.40 Difficult
0.41-0.60 Average
0.61-0.80 Easy
0.81-1.00 Very Easy
STEPS OF ITEM ANALYSIS
Arrange the scores in descending order.
Separate two subgroups of the test papers.
Count the number of right answers in the highest group and count the number of
right answers in lowest group.
Count the non-response examinees
Discrimination index- between the proportion of the top scores and the lowest
scores. Index of difficulty show the solution on how to get the percentage of each
item.
Addresses the validity of the item i.e., the extent to which item test the
attributes it was intended to test.
Ru−RL
D= 1
T
2
Ru = number of the students in the upper group who got the right.
RL = number of the students in the lower group who got the right.
1
T = half of the total number of students included in the analysis
2
D Value Item Evaluation
0.40 and above Very good item
0.30-0.39 Reasonably good but subject to
improvement
0.20-0.29 Marginal items usually needing and
being subject to improvement
Below 0.19 Poor items to be rejected or
improved by revisions
TYPES OF DISCRIMINATION INDEX
1. Positive Discrimination – happens when more students in the upper group got the
item correctly than those students in the lower group.
2. Negative Discrimination - occurs when more students in the lower group got the
item correctly than those students in the upper group.
3. Zero Discrimination – happens when a number of students in the upper group and
lower group who answer the test correctly are equal.
III. Synthesis
One way to assess how well your test is through item analyses, item
analysis is intended to assess and improve the reliability of your tests. If
test reliability is low, test validity will necessarily also be low. This is the
ultimate reason you do item analyses to improve the validity of a test by
improving its reliability. And to know whether the item is difficult for all the
Ru−RL
examinees here is the formula (p) =R/T, in index of difficulty D= 1 .
T
2
There are four steps on how to do item analysis and the three types of
discrimination index are positive, negative and zero discrimination.
IV. References
Martinez, I. (2012). Item Analysis. Retrieved from
http://educ5let2012.blogspot.com/2012/09/item-analysis_4.html
Pandit, P. (2010). Item Analysis. Retrieved from
https://www.slideshare.net/pampandit/item-analysis-2900749
V. Reflection
It is important for us students be an effective future teacher and this include how we
teach our students, and how they will gain new and fresh knowledge from us. A test is one of the
evidence whether we can say that we as a teacher is effective or not if the lessons that we teach
really understands by our students because after the test there will be item analysis that can help
us to know were are the weaknesses of our students about our lessons whether we will go back to
that specific lessons or we should change the way we present the questions because we all know
that students are not the same some are fast learners some or not. In addition, item analysis can
help teachers to improve some items because it may be used again in a future test but it can also
be eliminate.
