Exploring on item analysis of mid-trimester 2-test paper and its implications

The Committee for the Accreditation of university qualifications-CAUQ-Committee of Accreditation of University Qualification set in FIJI by Fiji Higher Education Commission stresses the importance of internal moderation of a testing tool by putting it as follows-“ Moderation internal…checking the validity of assessment tools and the allocation of grades by reference to colleagues within the institution.” as Validity and reliability of a test are supposed to be the main characteristics of a teacher-made test. Although checking the validity of allocation of grades was not done mainly because of the greater role played by subjectivity in marking and also because the markers might not like it, the researcher decided to focus on checking the validity of internal assessment tool that is the question paper, of MCQ nature. It could also throw some light on effectiveness of test questions, identify questions or items to be retained, revised or rejected on the basis of calculations related to item difficulty index, item discrimination index, distractors, along with finding out what learners know or do not know The exam paper was prepared by the researcher and used for mid-Trimester test of B. Ed In-service teachers in Trimester-2 of 2015 cohort, as an achievement test to evaluate learners’ progress as a part of course work to be used for internal assessment. The test question paper was qualitatively as well as quantitatively investigated for “postmortem” to arrive at some conclusions, on the basis of item analysis results, suggesting the strengths and weaknesses of the said question paper. For deciding reliability of the said test, two statistical calculations were done, viz. The Kuder-Richardson Formula (KR20) and the Kuder-Richardson Formula 21 (KR21).