The process of examining student responses to test questions in order to determine the validity and reliability of

the questions as well as the test as a whole.

The purpose is two-fold. First, to identify defective questions/distracters in order to modify or dismiss the question.
Second, to identify the content the learners have or have not mastered in order to remediate accurately.

Item Difficulty:
Percentage of students who answered correctly and ranges
from 0 - 100. Higher numbers indicate higher difficulty.
Reliability Coefficient:
References the ability of test to produce consistent scores.
Item Discrimination:
The ability of an item to differentiate between students based
on how well they know the content. Dependent on difficulty
and has a maximum value of 100.
Biserial Correlation:
Correlation between a students performance on an item and
his/her total score.
A test that evaluates homogenous content is
generally more reliable.
A test with more items will have a higher reliability.
Distracters that are not selected by any student
should be replaced or eliminated.
It is not important that all distracters are selected
equally.
A test with more items will have a higher reliability.
Distracters that are selected more often than other
options including the answer should be changed.
Do not dismiss an item simply because the majority
of students missed the item.
Questions that every student answers correctly
should be replaced because they lack difficulty.
Item difficulty should fall in the range of 40 - 60.
Good tests generally include items answered
correctly by 30 - 80% of the students.
Items should show consistent biserial correlations.
Students selecting the correct answer have higher
scores and students selecting the distracters have
lower scores.
If a majority of students omit many of the final
questions on a test, this most likely indicates
insufficient time and the number of test items
should be reduced.
TurningPoint offers several report
options that can provide the
information necessary to conduct
item analysis.

Results By Question Statistics:
Displays overall correct percentage per participant
versus the mean, median and mode.

Results By Question Difficulty/Discrimination Index:
The indexes are determined by the number of
correct responses in the upper half and lower half of
the participants, divided by the total responses in the
top and lower groups.