The item looks fine to me. I would want to know how the top students in the class did. If the top students got it right it is just a hard question, which is acceptable. If the top students tended to get it wrong, I would be confused and wonder what went wrong.
Joe Joseph J. Horton Ph. D. Faculty Box 2694 Grove City College Grove City, PA 16127 (724) 458-2004 In God we trust, all others must bring data. -----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 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
