ANALYZING AND USING

TEST ITEM DATA

Purposes and Elements of Item

Analysis
To select the best available items for
the final form of the test.
To identify structural or content
defects in the items.
To detect learning difficulties of the
class as a whole
To identify the areas of weaknesses of
students in need of remediation.

Three Elements in an Item

Analysis
1. Examination of the difficulty level
of the items,
2. Determination of the
discriminating power of each
item, and
3. Examination of the effectiveness
of distractors in a multiple choice
or matching items.

The difficulty level of an item is known as

index of difficulty.
Index of difficulty is the percentage of
students answering correctly each item in
the test
Index of discrimination refers to the
percentage of high-scoring individuals
responding correctly versus the number of
low-scoring individuals responding
correctly to an item.

This numeric index indicates how effectively

an item differentiates between the
students who did well and those who did
poorly on the test.

Preparing Data for Item Analysis

1. Arrange test scores from highest to
lowest.
2. Get one-third of the papers from the
highest scores and the other third
from the lowest scores.
3. Record separately the number of times
each alternative was chosen by the
students in both groups.

4. Add the number of correct answers

to each item made by the
combined upper and lower groups.
5. Compute the index of difficulty for
each item, following the formula:
IDF = (NRC/TS)100
where IDF = index of difficulty
NRC = number of students responding
correctly to an item
TS = total number of students in the
upper and lower groups

6. Compute the index of discrimination,

based on the formula:
IDN = (CU CL)
NSG
where IDN = index of discrimination
CU = number of correct responses of the upper group
CL = number of correct responses of the lower group
NSG = number of students per group

Using Information about Index of

Difficulty
The difficulty index of a test item
tells a teacher about the
comprehension of or performance
on material or task contained in
an item.

Item

Group

20

Answers
A

14

1
L

20

10

20

18

20

20

20

10

20

10

4
L

20

10

20

15

5
1

10

21

52.5

0.35

27

67.5

0.45

10

25.0

0.30

14

35.0

0.30

16

40.0

14

0.70

20

Difficulty
Index

H L Discrimin
ation
Index

Total No.
of
Correct
Answers

For an item to be considered a good

item, its difficulty index should be
50%. An item with 50% difficulty
index is neither easy nor difficult.
If an item has a difficulty index of 67.5%,
this means that it is 67.5% easy and
32.5% difficult.
Information on the index of difficulty of
an item can help a teacher decide
whether a test should be rejected,
retained or modified.

Interpretation of the Difficulty

Index
Range

Difficulty Level

20 & below
21 40
41 60
61 80
81 & above

Very Difficult
Difficult
Average
Easy
Very Easy

Using Information about Index of

Discrimination
The index of discrimination tells a teacher the
degree to which a test item differentiates the
high achievers from the low achievers in his
class. A test item may have positive or negative
discriminating power.
An item has a positive discriminating power when
more students from the upper group got the
right answer than those from the lower group
When more students from the lower group got the
correct answer on an item than those from the
upper group, the item has a negative
discriminating power.

There are instances when an item

has zero discriminating power
when equal number of students
from upper and lower group got
the right answer to a test item.

In the given example, item 5 has

the highest discriminating power.
This means that it can
differentiate high and low
achievers.

Interpretation of the Index of

Discrimination
Range

Verbal Description

.40 & above

.30 .39
.20 .29
.09 .19
Negative - 0

Very Good Item

Good Item
Fair Item
Poor Item
Very Poor Item

When should a test item be rejected?

Retained? Modified or revised?
A test item can be retained when its level
of difficulty is average and
discriminating power is positive.
It has to be rejected when it is either
easy/very easy or difficult/very
difficult and its discriminating power is
negative or zero.
An item can be modified when its
difficulty level is average and its
discrimination index is negative.

Examining Distractor Effectiveness

An ideal item is one that all
students in the upper group
answer correctly and all students
in the lower group answer
wrongly. And the responses of
the lower group have to be evenly
distributed among the incorrect
alternatives.

Limitations of Item Analysis

It cannot be used for essay items.
Teachers must be cautious about
what damage may be due to the
table of specifications when items
not meeting the criteria are
deleted from the test. These
items are to be rewritten or
replaced.

ITEM ANALYSIS
Item

Group

Correct
Answers
per group

H=
L=

H=
L=

H=
L=

H=
L=

H=
L=

H=
L=

H=
L=

H=
L=

Total No.
of Correct
Answers

IDF

Interpreta
tion

IDN

Interpreta
tion

Decision