ITEM ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION:-
• It is a statistical technique which is used for selecting and rejecting the items of a test on
the basis of their difficulty value and discriminative power.

• Item analysis technique helps in selecting the best items for final draft of the test and poor
items are rejected and the items are modified.

• In addition, item analysis is valuable for increasing instructors’ skills in test Construction,
and identifying specific areas of course content which need greater emphasis or clarity.
The procedure used to judge the quality of an item is called as item analysis.

DEFINITION:-
“It is a statistical technique which is used for selecting and rejecting the items of the test on the
basis of their difficulty value and discriminated power”.

OR

“Item analysis is an aspect of test analysis which involves examination of the characteristics of
test items.”

OR

“The effectiveness of each item can be determined by analyzing the pupil’s response to the item,
this is known as item analysis.”

PURPOSES:-
 To judge the worth or quality of a test
 Classification of students or candidates.
 Selection of the candidates for the job.
 Promotion and prognosis of the candidates or students.
 To do modification to be made in some of the items.
 Brings about improvement in testing methods and techniques.
 Make decisions about promotion of students to the next higher grade
 To provide discriminatory power to differentiate between capable & less capable
examinees for the items.
 To prepare the final draft on the basis of their difficulty level properly (easy to difficult
items).
OBJECTIVES:-
 To select the appropriate items for the final draft and reject the poor items which do not
contribute in the functioning of the test. Some items are to be modified.

 Item analysis obtains the difficulty values of all items of preliminary draft of the test. The
items are classified difficult, moderate, easy items.

 It provides the discriminative power (item reliability/ validity) to differentiate between

capable and less capable examinees of all the items.

 The reliability and validity of test depends upon the characteristics of test. Both these
indexes are considered simultaneously in selecting and rejecting the items of a test.

 Item analysis is a cyclic technique. The modified items are tried out and their items
analysis is done again to obtain these indexed (difficulty and discrimination). The
empirical evidences are obtained for selecting the items for the final draft.

STEPS:
 Arrange the scores in descending order

 Separate two sub groups of the test papers

 Take 27% of the scores out of the higher scores and 27% of the scores falling at bottom

 Count the number of examinees in higher (N.H) and lower group (N.L)

 Count the number of right answer in higher group (R.H) and count the number of right
answer in lower group (R.L)

 Count the non response (N.R) examinees.

It involves three numerical indicators. They are:

 Item Difficulty value

 Item Discrimination power

 Distracter Power
1. ITEM DIFFICULTY VALUE

The difficulty value of an item is defined as the proportion or percentage of the examinees
who have answered the item correctly.

- J.P Guilford
Formula:

D.V= (R.H+
R.L)
• R.H= rightly answered in higher group
(N.H+
• N.L)
R.L= rightly answered in lower group

• N.H= no. of examinees in higher group

• N.L= no. of examinees in lower group

I.D = R/ N X 100
 R= Rightly answered in group
 N= total no. of examinees

In case of non- response examinees available means,

D.V= (R.H+ R.L)

(N.H+ N.L)- N.R
• R.H= rightly answered in higher group

• R.L= rightly answered in lower group

• N.H= no. of examinees in higher group

• N.L= no. of examinees in lower group

 • N.R= no. of non- response examinees

Level of Difficulty

Index range Difficulty level

0.00-0.20 Very difficult

0.21-0.40 Difficult
0.41-0.60 Average/ moderately difficult
0.61-0.80 Easy
0.81- 1.00 Very easy

2. ITEM DISCRIMINATION POWER

“Index of discrimination is that ability of an item on the basis of which the discrimination is
made between superiors and inferiors”. It range from +1 to -1.

- Blood and Budd (1972)

D.V= (R.H+ R.L)

(N.H) or N.L

R.H= rightly answered in higher group

R.L= rightly answered in lower group

N.H= no. of examinees in higher group

N.L= no. of examinees in lower group

Types of Discrimination Index

• Positive Discrimination

• Negative Discrimination

• Zero Discrimination
Positive Discrimination

An item is correctly answered by superiors & is not answered correctly by inferiors.

Negative Discrimination

An item is correctly answered by inferiors & is not answered correctly by superiors.

Zero discrimination/ No discrimination

The item of the test is answered correctly by all the examinee’s or an item is not answered
correctly by any of the examinee.

Ebel’s (1972) gives the indices of item discrimination in the terms shown below. For
average classroom test, these indices are widely accepted.

D Value Item Evaluation

0.40 and above very good item

0.30 – 0.39 reasonably good, but subject to

improvement

0.0 – 0.29 marginal items usually needing and

being subject to Improvement

Below 0.19 poor items to be rejected or improved by

 revision

3. DISTRACTOR POWER

• The third statistic is distractor power. It provides information about effectiveness of the
distractors

• Groundlund and Linn 1990 states that this can be determined by inspection and so there
is no need to calculate index

• In general a good distractor should discriminate between upper and lower groups

EXAMPLE:

TOTAL A B C D E

N.H 27 0 7 17 1 2

N.L 27 0 3 7 8 9
 CONCLUSION
• Thus item analysis is an effective way to select the appropriate items for the final draft
& reject the poor items which do not contribute in the functioning of the test.

• Item analysis technique helps in selecting the best items for final draft of the test and poor
items are rejected and the items are modified.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Aggarwal J.C. (1996). “Principles, methods & technique of teaching” (2nd edition) New

delhi vikas publishing house Pvt Ltd.

 Aggarwal J.C (2003). “Essentials of educational technology Teaching” (1st edition) New

delhi, Vikas Publishing house Pvt

 Basavanthappa B.T (2013) “Nursing Education”,( 1st edition), New delhi jaypee
 Elakkuvana Bhaskara Raj (2013) “ Text book of Nursing education” (1st edition)
,EMMESS Medical Publishers ,
 Patidar Anurag,(2012) “Communication and Nursing Education” (2nd Edition) New
delhi, Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd,
 Pramilaa R,(2010) “Communication and educational Technology” (1st edition) Jaypee
Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd,
 K P Neerja (2003) “textbook of Nursing Education” (1st edition) New Delhi, jaypee.
 JABALPUR INSTIUTE OF NURSING
SCIENCES AND RESEARCH
SUBJECT ON –NURSING EDUCATION
TOPIC PRESENTATION ON
ITEM ANALYSIS

Submitted To Submitted By
Mrs. SURBHI R.KEHERI miss PREETI SHARMA
Professor M sc (N) 1st year
Jinsar, Jinsar,