Item Analysis

Item analysis techniques are among the most valuable tools classroom
teachers or rest developers can apply when attempting to improve the
quality of their measuring devices. It has four general purposes: (1) to select
the best available questions for the final form of an assessment; (2) to
identify structural or content defects in the questions; (3) to detect
learning difficulties of the class as a whole, identifying general content
areas or skills that need to be reviewed by the instructor; and (4) to
identify for individual students areas of weakness needing remediation.

An item analysis has three main elements. One is examining the

difficulty level of the items, that is the percentage of students responding
correctly to each question in the assessment. Another is determining the
discriminating power of each item. It refers to the relation of performance
on each item to performance on the total test. The third element is
examining the effectiveness of the distractors.

Preparing Data for Analysis

1. Arrange the answer sheets in order from high to low.

This ranking is usually based on the individual’s total score on the test.

2. High and low-scoring groups are identified.

For purpose of item analysis, these two extreme sets of examination
paper are called criterion groups. The goal is to include enough people in the
criterion groups to justify confidence in the results, and yet keep the
criterion groups distinct enough to ensure that they represent different
levels of ability.

3. Record separately the number of times each alternative was selected

by individuals in the high and low groups.

4. Add the number of correct answers to each item made by the

combined high and low groups.
5. Divide the total number of correct responses by the maximum
possible, that is, the total number of students in the combined high and
low groups, and multiply the result by 100.
This percentage is an estimate of the difficulty index. Some test
constructors allow items to be omitted, and the students inadvertently omit
items. If all individuals have not attempted all items, item difficulty indices
should be obtained by dividing the total number of correct responses by the
number of individuals who attempted the item.

6. Subtract the number of correct answers made by the low group from
the number of correct answers made by the high group.

7. Divide this number ( the difference, H-L ) by the number of

individuals contained in the subgroup ( that is, the number in the high or
low group ).
This decimal number is the discrimination index.

Consideration of Question Difficulty

An item’s difficulty level is important because it tells the instructor

something meaningful about the comprehension of, or performance on,
material or tasks contained in the item. It represents the percentage of the
total number of respondents answering the item correctly. A Paradox exists
in interpreting the item difficulty indices, if a teacher has done a good job
in teaching a particular concept skill or fact, students will perform well on
items related to that topic. Item difficulty values will be high in numerical
value, for example, 85, meaning that a large percentage of the students did
well. If most everyone did well then there is no room for the item(s) to
discriminate.