NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

GABALDON CAMPUS

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

IN SERVICE TRAINING
Item Analysis and Table of Specification
Lecturers:

Prof. Angelina G. Mallari

Mr. Andie T. Capinding

USG-Function Hall
March 3, 2020 (1:00 pm )
ITEM ANALYSIS
Determining the effectiveness of the items
 Purposes 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;
and
 To identify the areas of weaknesses of students in need
of remediation.
 UL method of item analysis
Table below presents the result of item 18 taken by 42 grade 7 students in mathematics achievement test
subject for item analysis.

pupils score answer Pupils score answer

1 79 C 22 90 C
2 78 C 23 78 A
3 91 C 24 77 C
4 76 B 25 85 A
5 86 C 26 81 B
6 75 C 27 74 D
7 82 B 28 83 D
8 88 C 29 68 C
9 80 E 30 64 D
10 65 C 31 70 E
 pupils score answer Pupils score answer
11 53 A 32 61 B
12 60 B 33 50 D
13 87 C 34 71 E
14 92 C 35 56 D
15 58 E 36 67 C
16 63 A 37 69 C
17 55 A 38 95 C
18 93 C 39 70 C
19 57 E 40 72 E
20 66 D 41 73 D
21 73 A 42 89 C

*C-correct answer
Steps in item analysis
Step 1. arrange the scores from highest to lowest
95-c 79-c 68-c
93-c 78-c 67-c
92-c 78-a 66-d
91-c 77-c 65-c
90-c 76-b 64-d
89-c 75-c 63-a
88-c 74-d 61-b
87-c 73-a 60-b
86-c 73-d 58-e
85-a 72-e 57-e
83-c 71-e 56-d
82-b 70-e 55-a
81-b 70-c 53-a
80-e 69-c 50-d
 Step 2. get one-third of the papers from the highest scores and one-third from the lowest
scores.
Upper group Lower group
score answer score answer
95 C 68 C
93 C 67 C
92 C 66 D
91 C 65 C
90 C 64 D
89 C 63 A
88 C 61 B
87 C 60 B
86 C 58 E
85 A 57 E
83 A 56 D
82 B 55 A
81 B 53 A
80 E 50 D
 Step 3. count the number of pupils in the upper and lower groups, respectively, who chose
the options.
 Step 4. record the frequency from step 3.

Item 18
options a b *c d e
Upper (14) 1 2 9 1 1
Lower (14) 3 2 3 4 2

*Correct answer
 Step 5. estimate the index of difficulty.

InD= x 100

NRCnumber of students responding correctly to an item

TS = total number students in the upper and lower group

InD =

Range Difficulty level

20 and below Very difficult
21-40 difficult
41-60 average
61-80 easy
81 and above Very easy
 Step 6. Index of discriminating power

InDxP =

=
= 0.43

range Verbal description

0.40 and above Very good item
0.30 – 0.39 Good item
0.20 - 0.29 Fair item
0.09 – 0.19 Poor item
When should a test item be rejected? Retained?
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 its 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.
 Sample item data
item Stude Answers Total Difficulty H-L Discrimina ACTION
nts/ number of index tion index
Grou correct
p answers
A B C D
1 H 20 3 14 2 1
21 52.5 7 0.35 retain
L 20 10 7 3 0
2 H 20 0 0 9 2
27 67.5 -9 -0.45 reject
L 20 0 3 18 8
3 H 20 4 8 4 4 Retain/
10 25.0 6 0.30
L 20 10 2 4 4 revise
4 H 20 3 3 4 10 Retain/
14 35.0 6 0.30
L 20 2 4 10 4 revise
5 H 20 15 2 2 1
10 40.0 14 0.70 Retain
L 20 1 10 4 5
*underlined numbers indicate the
correct answer
 Discriminating Coefficient

 Use point bi-serial coefficient of correlation.

 Negative coefficient (reject)
 Positive coefficient but not significant (revise)
 Positive and significant (retain)
(Grande, 2019)
Examining Distractor Effectiveness

 An ideal item is one that all students in the upper

group answer correctly and all students in the low
group answer wrongly. Moreover, the responses of
the lower group have to evenly distributed among
the incorrect alternatives (Ferguson and Takane,
1989).
Procedures in examining the effectiveness of
the distractors in a multiple-choice item.
 The first procedure requires that the answer to the different
distractors be counted for the upper and lower group. Good
distractors are those chosen more frequently by the students from
the lower group.
 When the distractor is selected more frequently by those from the
upper group, the teacher has to revise it.
 Some distractor chosen by no one in either of the two groups. Such
distractor should also revise.
 Example:

A B C *D E
Lower group 2 8 5 6 3
Upper group 3 5 5 4 5

A – POOR
B – GOOD
C – FAIR
D – POOR
E - POOR
 Exercises:
Upper group Lower group
48-a 20-a
48-a 20-a
47-a 19-b
46-a 19-b
46-a 18-a
45-a 18-c
45-b 16-c
45-a 15-d
44-c 13-a
43-d 12-b

*a - Correct answer