How do you determine the difficulty level of a test item?

How do you determine the difficulty level of a test item?

Calculating Item Difficulty Count the total number of students answering each item correctly. For each item, divide the number answering correctly by the total number of students. This gives you the proportion of students who answered each item correctly. This figure is called the item’s difficulty level.

What is test difficulty index?

The Difficulty Index is the proportion or probability that candidates, or students, will answer a test item correctly. Generally, more difficult items have a lower percentage, or P-value.

How do you calculate difficulty index?

Using the Difficulty Index Formula The formula looks like this: the number of students who answer a question correctly (c) divided by the total number of students in the class who answered the question (s).

What is a good item difficulty index?

11, 12 Discrimination index of 0.40 and up is considered as very good items, 0.30–0.39 is reasonably good, 0.20–0.29 is marginal items (i.e. subject to improvement), and 0.19 or less is poor items (i.e. to be rejected or improved by revision).

How do you determine if an item is easy or difficult?

ScorePak® arbitrarily classifies item difficulty as “easy” if the index is 85% or above; “moderate” if it is between 51 and 84%; and “hard” if it is 50% or below.

What are the levels of difficulty?

Difficulty Levels

• Easier Than Easy.
• Easy / Beginner / Novice.
• Normal / Medium / Standard / Average / Intermediate.
• Hard / Expert / Difficult.
• Harder Than Hard (it may be Unlockable Content that is only revealed after completing the previous difficulty)

What is Item difficulty in test construction?

Item difficulty is simply the percentage of students taking the test who answered the item correctly. The larger the percentage getting an item right, the easier the item. The higher the difficulty index, the easier the item is understood to be (Wood, 1960).

What is Item difficulty?

For items with one correct alternative worth a single point, the item difficulty is simply the percentage of students who answer an item correctly. It also plays an important role in the ability of an item to discriminate between students who know the tested material and those who do not.

How can I improve my test items?

Improving the test items

1. Score the papers and rank them from highest to lowest according to total score.
2. Separate the top 27% and the bottom 27% of the papers.
3. Tally the responses made to each test item by each individual in the upper 27% group.

How does difficulty index and discrimination index help you as a teacher?

From Figure 1 is it can be observed that as the items get easy (p = 75% above) the level of DI decreases. Also, as the discrimination indices turn negative then the difficulty index increases.

What is the scale for beginners on the difficulty scale?

On a scale of 1 to 5, a 1-2 is easy, a 3 is moderate, and a 4-5 is difficult.

What is the index of difficulty?

The item difficulty index is often called the p-value because it is a measure of proportion – for example, the proportion of students who answer a particular question correctly on a test. P-values are found by using the difficulty index formula, and they are reported in a range between 0.0 and 1.0.

What is the definition of difficulty index?

Difficulty Index. The Difficulty Index is the proportion or probability that candidates, or students, will answer a test item correctly. Generally, more difficult items have a lower percentage, or P-value. Back to Glossary.

What is an item discrimination index?

Item Discrimination Index. The item discrimination index is a measure of how well an item is able to distinguish between examinees who are knowledgeable and those who are not, or between masters and non-masters.