Solve the following problem on your own: calculate the item difficulty and item discrimination.
Your class takes a writing test where the scores are distributed on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 = lowest, 5 = highest. Here are the students and their scores.
| Student Number | Score |
| 1 | 4 |
| 2 | 4 |
| 3 | 2 |
| 4 | 5 |
| 5 | 5 |
| 6 | 1 |
| 7 | 3 |
| 8 | 2 |
| 9 | 4 |
| 10 | 2 |
Use Item Analysis for Constructed-Response Items to calculate: (Top Group is top 3 scores, Bottom Group is bottom 3 scores)
Once you have completed the analysis, construct a brief 2-3 page paper in APA format (2-3 page requirement does not include your title page or reference page) and address the following:
- Describe and discuss the importance of item difficulty and item discrimination index. As a classroom teacher, what do these indexes mean to you?
- Analyze whether you think this was a good test in terms of these results.
- Identify questions or comments this raises for assessments used in your classroom (this also includes assessments required by the state that are administered in your classroom)
Materials to be used to understand assignment
Resources to use:
High Quality Assessment and Item Analysis for Teachers
An important part of measuring the quality of your assessments is understanding the role of validity and reliability in your evaluations. Validity is determined by whether or not your assessment is measuring what you intend on assessing. Reliability is determined by whether your assessment is consistent in what it measures over time. Please take a few minutes to visit the following resources for more information and examples of validity and reliability:
http://fcit.usf.edu/assessment/basic/basicc.html
Even the most valid and reliable assessment should be revisited to determine and maintain the quality of the assessment. It is essential that teachers take advantage of the data they collect from the assessment they are providing their students. This week we will explore the use of item analysis to help better understand the level of quality of our questions/assessments.
Item analysis is defined as “…a process which examines student responses to individual test items (questions) in order to assess the quality of those items and of the test as a whole” (Office of Educational Assessment, n.d., para. 1). This type of analysis allows us to explore the item discrimination (differentiate based on student performance) and the item difficulty (percentage of students who answered a question correctly).
For a more detailed explanation item discrimination versus item difficulty, please view the following
http://ericae.net/ft/tamu/Espy.htm
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2090744013/fulltextPDF/618F666059784259PQ/1?accountid=8289 (pg. 22-38)
Assignment RUBRIC Criteria
| Criteria | Exemplary 4 (4 points) | Accomplished 3 (3.4 points) | Developing 2 (3 points) | Beginning 1 (2.6 points) | No Attempt 0 (0 points) |
| Scholarly Writing APA (CAEP 1.1) ILO – Intellectual Skills 15% | All sources are properly documented and cited; APA 6th ed. formatting style is followed without errors. | Most sources are properly documented and cited and/or the APA 6th ed. formatting style is followed with less than 3 errors. | Some sources are properly documented and cited and/or APA 6th ed. formatting style is followed with 4-5 errors. | Most sources are not properly documented or cited and/or the candidate APA 6th ed. formatting style is followed, but with more than 5 errors. | No assignment submitted |
| Scholarly Writing/Speak Writing Mechanics (CAEP 1.1) 15% | Word choice is purposeful and precise; there are no capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and/or usage convention errors; writing is clear; meaningful transitions and strong sentence-to-sentence connections enhance the flow of the paper by clearly showing the relationships among ideas. | Word choice is purposeful and precise; and/or there are less than 3 capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and/or usage convention errors; and/or writing is clear; and/or meaningful transitions and strong sentence-to-sentence connections enhance the flow of the paper by clearly showing the relationships among ideas. | Word choice is purposeful and precise; and/or there are 4-5 capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and/or usage convention errors; and/or writing is clear; and/or meaningful transitions and strong sentence-to-sentence connections enhance the flow of the paper by clearly showing the relationships among ideas. | Word choice is purposeful and precise; and/or there are more than 5 capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and/or usage convention errors; writing is clear; meaningful transitions and strong sentence-to-sentence connections enhance the flow of the paper by clearly showing the relationships among ideas. | No assignment submitted |
| Assessment Assessment analysis (CAEP 1.1) ILO – Applied Learning 50% | Fully explains item difficulty and item discrimination (explicitly grounded in the body of literature), how indexes impact the quality of the test, and how indexes relate to classroom assessment. | Adequately explains item difficulty and item discrimination (explicitly grounded in the body of literature), how indexes impact the quality of the test, and how indexes relate to classroom assessment. | Minimally explains item difficulty and item discrimination (explicitly grounded in the body of literature), how indexes impact the quality of the test, and how indexes relate to classroom assessment. | Inadequately and/or inaccurately explains item difficulty and item discrimination (explicitly grounded in the body of literature), how indexes impact the quality of the test, and how indexes relate to classroom assessment. | No assignment submitted |
| Timeliness & Length Requirement 20% | Paper is at least 2-3 pages in length and is submitted on time. | Paper is 2 pages in length and/or is submitted 1 day late | Paper is 1-1.5 pages in length and/or is submitted more than 1 day late | Paper is less than 1 pagein length and/or is submitted more than 2 days late | No assignment submitted |
