Lesson 2.

2
Characteristics of
Assessment Tools

Assessment and Evaluation in Social Sciences

Objectives
• Differentiate index of difficulty and index of
discrimination.
• Identify structural or content defects in the items.
• Explain the concept of reliability and validity in
assessment.
Index of Difficulty
• The percentage of students answering correctly each item in the test.

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
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.

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
Item Group Answers Total No. of Correct Difficulty Index H-L Discrimination Index
A B C D Answers

1 H 20 3 14 2 1
L 20
10 7 3 0
2 H 20 0 0 18 2
L 20
0 3 9 8
3 H 20 4 8 4 4
L 20
10 2 4 4
4 H 20 3 3 4 10
L 20
2 4 10 4
5 H 20 15 2 2 1
L 20
1 10 4 5
 Difficulty index of a test item can be interpreted
with the use of the following table of equivalents:

Range Difficulty
20 & below Very Difficult
21-40 Difficult
41-60 Average
61-80 Easy
81 & above Very Easy
Table of equivalents in interpreting obtained
index of discrimination.
Range Difficulty Level
.40 & above Very Good Item
.30 to .39 Good Item
.20 to .29 Fair Item
.19 to .01 Poor Item
0 to negative Very Poor Item
Item Group Answers Total No. of Correct Difficulty Index H-L Discrimination Index
A B C D Answers

1 H 10 0 8 1 1 -2
L 10
0 0 3 7
2 H 10 10 0 0 0 10
L 10
0 4 3 3
3 H 10 1 4 2 3 1
L 10
4 1 3 2
4 H 10 3 6 1 0 1
L 10
2 5 0 3
5 H 10 8 1 0 1 2
L 10
6 0 2 2