Rod:
Only 8% of the students got it correct? Was the answer key
filled out correctly? Who figured the item difficulty level - you or the
software? I agree the question is straightforward.
============================================
John W. Kulig
Professor of Psychology
Plymouth State College
Plymouth NH 03264
============================================
"Eat bread and salt and speak the truth"
Russian saying.
-----Original Message-----
From: Hetzel, Rod [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 12:16 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences
Subject: Test item difficulty
Hi everyone:
Here's a scenario for your consideration.
I gave a multiple-choice quiz today with ten items. Each item has four
response options, so the optimum difficulty level for any item would be
about .625. For one question, most of the class got the question wrong
and the actual item difficulty was .08. Does this mean that item itself
was a difficult item (which would be a test construction issue and
suggest that the item should be discarded from the test), or does it
mean that the students were not prepared to answer the question (which
would suggest either inadequate instruction by the professor or
inadequate preparation by the students)? I'm looking at this because
the question, in my estimation, was a simple question. Here it is:
A student confronts his psychology professor and says, "You assigned
Chapters 7 through 10, but nearly all of the items came from Chapter 7.
How can you evaluate whether we know anything about the other material
we were supposed to read?" The student is challenging the test on the
basis of:
A. Face validity
B. Content validity
C. Criterion validity
D. Construct validity
This to me seems like a straightforward question. Students chose
equally from the three distractors. The topic was covered substantially
in class through lecture and activities. The book also provides very
easy coverage of this topic. I'm trying to decide why this question
posed such a challenge to the students.
Rod
______________________________________________
Roderick D. Hetzel, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
LeTourneau University
Post Office Box 7001
2100 South Mobberly Avenue
Longview, Texas 75607-7001
Office: Education Center 218
Phone: 903-233-3893
Fax: 903-233-3851
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage: http://www.letu.edu/people/rodhetzel
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