Effects of Student Confidence and Item Difficulty on Test Score Gains Due to Answer Changing

Two undergraduate and two graduate classes in statistics were given multiple-choice tests with subsequent evaluation of answer changes. The 95 students tested had an answer change rate of 6.6%. In evaluating the number of answer changes, no significant effect was found for ability, gender, nor the interaction between ability and gender. An analysis of gain scores due to answer changing showed a significant main effect for item difficulty, student change confidence, and their interaction. No significant effect on gain score was found for ability or any interaction with ability. Significant gains, even for changes based on low confidence, were interpreted as suggesting that previous cautions about answer changing are not warranted.

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The Analysis of Junior High School Teacher-Made Tests for the Students in Enrekang

FOSTER: Journal of English Language Teaching ◽

10.24256/foster-jelt.v1i2.14 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 122-138

Author(s):

Husnani Aliah

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

Junior High School ◽

Junior High ◽

Item Difficulty ◽

Item Analysis ◽

Multiple Choice ◽

Item Bank ◽

Cognitive Domain ◽

Multiple Choice Tests ◽

Choice Tests

The research aimed at finding out information about the preparation of constructing teacher-made tests in Enrekang, the quality of English teacher-made test according to item analysis, and the level cognitive domain of the teacher-made test. The test quality was determined after it was used in school examination test. This research employed survey research using descriptive method. The researcher analyzed the data and then described the research finding quantitatively. The population of this research was the teachers who teach in ninth grade at junior high schools in Enrekang. This research applied simple random sampling technique by taking four different schools as sampel. The results of analysis show preparation that junior high school teachers follow in constructing teacher-made tests in Enrekang is divided into five main parts. In preparing the test, the procedures were considering tests’ materials and proportion of each topic, choosing to check the item bank that match to syllabus and indicators, or preparing test specification. In writing test, teachers’ procedures were re-writing chosen test item from internet and textbook, re-writing items that was used before and allowing the other teachers to verify it, combining items from item bank and text book, or making new item. While in analyzing a test, the procedures used by the teachers were analyzing and revising test based on its item difficulty, predicting the item difficulty and revising the test, or doing nothing to analyze the test. About the timing in preparing the test, there are three out of five teachers who need only one week to construct multiple choice tests. Besides, there are two out of five teachers who need two weeks to construct multiple choice tests. While the teachers have different ways in providing test based on students’ ability. Moreover, the item analysis shows that no test is perfectly good. It was found that almost all tests need to be revised. It was also found that there were only three categories works in all tests based on the cognitive domain of the test namely knowledge, comprehension, and application categories. There was no item belong to analysis, synthesis, and evaluation categories.

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Examinees' Control of Item Difficulty Sequence

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/pr0.1978.42.3c.1109 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 42 (3_suppl) ◽

pp. 1109-1110 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

J. Porter Tuck

Keyword(s):

Item Difficulty ◽

Multiple Choice ◽

Introductory Psychology ◽

Multiple Choice Tests ◽

Test Taking ◽

Choice Tests ◽

Sequence Effects ◽

Test Taking Strategies

90 students in introductory psychology responded to a questionnaire designed to assess test-taking strategies on multiple-choice tests. The data suggested that previous studies may not have actually tested item-difficulty sequence effects since item sequence is under examinees' control.

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A theoretical formalization of the probability of solving multiple-choice tests and its application to different scoring rules

10.31234/osf.io/4pk6x ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Rasmus Persson

Keyword(s):

Test Score ◽

Multiple Choice ◽

Choice Test ◽

Partial Knowledge ◽

Test Taker ◽

Test Error ◽

Multiple Choice Tests ◽

Item Level ◽

Choice Tests ◽

Latent Ability

In multiple-choice tests, guessing is a source of test error which can be suppressed if its expected score is made negative by either penalizing wrong answers or rewarding expressions of partial knowledge. We consider an arbitrarymultiple-choice test taken by a rational test-taker that knows an arbitrary fraction of its keys and distractors. For this model, we compare the relation between the obtained score for standard marking (where guessing is not penalized), marking where guessing is suppressed either by expensive score penalties for incorrect answers or by marking schemes that reward partial knowledge. While the “best” scoring system (in the sense that latent ability and test score are linearly related) will depend on the underlying ability distribution, we find a superiority of the scoring rule of Zapechelnyuk (Economics Letters, 132, 2015) but, except for item-level discrimination among test-takers, a single penalty for wrong answers seems to yield just as good or better results as more intricate schemes with partial credit.

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