Other Possible Item Flaws

MISKEYED ITEM
When an item is miskeyed, most students who did well on the test will likely select an
option that is a distracter, rather than an option that is keyed.

Consider the following miskeyed item.

Who was the first astronaut to set foot on the moon?

A. John Glenn
B. Scott Carpenter
C. Neil Armstrong
D*. Allan Sheppard

Analyzing the responses for the upper half of the class, we find the following distribution:

A B C D*
Upper 27% 1 1 9 2

GUESSING OCCURRED
When guessing occurs, students in the upper group of the class respond in more or less
random fashion.
This most likely to occur when the items measures content that
1. not covered in class or text
2. so difficult even the top performing students have no idea what the correct answer is.
3. so trivial that students are unable to choose from among the choices provided.

The following choice distribution would suggest that guessing occurred

A B C D*
Upper 27% 4 4 3 4

AMBIGUITY
Ambiguity is suspected when, among the upper group, when one of the distracters is
chosen with about the same frequency as the correct answer.

A B C D*
Upper 27% 8 1 3 8