CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of Study Many informations which come from mass media or eletronic use English as the language of instruction. In addition, most people in the world speak English in communication. So that, people realize that English is important to be learned in order to support them in creating a better communication with others. According to Harmer, English has a special position since it has become the international language of communication and it offers a chance for advancement in the professional lives1. What Harmer said means that English as the international language takes a main role in global communication and competition. So, it can be defined that by mastering English, people can succes in career, education even social relationship. Many peoples take a chance to learn English because of the importance of English. Many of them join English course, study in English faculty, learn from the internet and many more to support their abilities in using English. Even several governments and institutions such educational department support their citizen to learn and use English. In Indonesia, English is used as a foreign language. It is taught to students to all level of education, from primary school to senior high school. In
1 Jeremy Harmer. 1994. The Practice of English Language Teaching. New York: Longman Publishing. p. 1.

the primary school, English is learned as a local content while in the senior high school, English is learned as a compulsory subject. It can be defined that English as a subject also has an important role to support the students achievement in education. In learning English, there are four basic skills that must be mastered by the students. They are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Actually, the school curriculum has set up the objectives or goals that should be achieved by students for mastering those skills in learning. To know the students achievement in learning, teacher needs to carry out evaluation. Evaluation is an activity that is always done by everyone with a purpose of knowing the condition of something. According to Lee J. Cronbach, Evaluation is the process by which teacher and student judge whether or not the goals of schooling are being attained.2 Evaluation is an integral part of teaching and learning. Without evaluation, the teacher as evaluator, corrector and supervisor cannot know the progress of students achievement in learning. So that, evaluation is an important element that cannot be separated with other elements in education. Rea-Dickins and Germaine state: Evaluation is an intristic part of teaching and learning. It is important for teacher because it can provide wealth of information to use for the future direction of classroom practice, for the planning of courses, and for the management of learning tasks and students.3

Lee J. Cronbach. 1963. Educational Psychology3rd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. p. 539. 3 Pauline Rea-Dickins & Kevin Germaine. 2003. Evaluation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 3.

In teaching process, evaluation can be done in the form of a test. Test is an evaluation instrument to measure someones or pupils knowledge and ability as Brown states, A test in plain words, is a method of measuring a persons ability or knowledge in a given domain.4 The test is commonly carried out in the form of formative test or summative test in the school. The formative test is done to measure students achievement in every instructional objective while the summative test is done at the end of semester called final test as Wiersma and Jurs states, Formative testing occurs over a period of time and monitors student progress. Summative testing is done at the conclusion of instruction and measures the extent to which students have attained the desired outcomes.5 There are three aspects that teacher should be aware in making test. In short, Harris states, All good test posses three qualities: validity, reliability, and practicality.6 It means that every test should be valid, reliable, and practical. So that, it can provide accurate results on what is going to be measured as H. Douglas Brown states: How do you know if a test is a good test or not? Is administrable within given constraints? Is it dependable? Does it accurately measure what you want it to measure? These answer can be answered through three classic criteria for testing a test: practicality, reliability, and validity.7 Although the teacher is capable and experienced in designing a test, the
4 H. Douglas Brown. 2001. Teaching by Principles an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy 2nd edition. San Fransisco State University: Addison Wesley Longman Inc. p. 384. 5 William Wiersma and Stephen G. Jurs. 1990. Educational Measurement and Testing 2nd Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. p. 19. 6 David P. Harris. 1963. Testing English as Second Language. Bombay: Tata McGrawHill Publishing Company. p. 13. 7 H. Douglas Brown. Op. cit. p. 385.

mistakes in making the test items which are irrelevant and incomprehensible are often happened. Those cause the test becomes too difficult or too easy when it is done by the students. In this case, the quality of the test items need to be recognized by doing item analysis that cover aspects of difficulty level, discriminating power, and the effectiveness of the distracters. Furthermore, after analyzing the items, the teacher can judge on which items need to be revised, mantained or discarded. SMK Rahayu Mulyo which states in East Jakarta always has made evaluation. It is commonly carried out in the form of summative test once per semester. this test was made by a team of the english teacher. The items of English summative test for the 2nd year of even semester which has been carried out is never analyzed before. It means the quality of the test items was never known. Meanwhile, the English teacher of SMK Rahayu Mulyo said that he does not already analyzed the test because the time, accuracy, and patience are certainly needed for doing an item analysis. Because of this fact, the writer is interested in making an item analysis of this summative test.

B. The Limitation of Study The writer limits the study on the multiple-choice items of English summative test which has been tested to the second year students of SMK Rahayu Mulyo Jakarta in even semester 2011/2012 academic year. The writer

focuses the analysis on the aspects of difficulty level, discriminating power, and the effectiveness of the distaracters.

C. The Statements of Problem From the description on the background of study above, the writer will do the research to answer the following problem: Does the English Summative test for the second year students of SMK Rahayu Mulyo in 2011/2012 academic year have good items?

D. The Purpose of Study The purpose of the study are is to know whether the English sumative test which has been tested to the second year students of SMK Rahayu Mulyo Jakarta in the second semester 2011/2012 academic year consists of good items or not. The study is also aimed to find out the empirical answer to the questions that has been formulated in the statement of problem.

E. The Significance of Study Practically, it is hoped that this research would bring some benefits as follows: 1) This study will provide the English teachers of SMK Rahayu Mulyo Jakarta with some useful informations relate to the discussion of the test result, the improvement of test construction, and the general improvement of classroom instruction.

2) This study will give the writer both theoretical and practical knowledge about item analysis and its procedures. 3) This study will give the information for the writer because the writer is a teacher candidate so in the next time the writer can use this experience as a reference.

F. The Organization of Paper This paper is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction which consists the background of the study, the limitation of study, the statement of problem, the purpose of study, the significance of study and the organization of paper. The second chapter deals with theoritical framework which discusses the understanding of the evaluation and test, the characteristics of a good test, the kinds of test and also the understanding about item analysis that included the difficulty level, discriminating power, and the effectiveness of the distracters. The third chapter explains about the implementation of the research which involves the methodology the research which consists of the objective of the research, the time and location of the research, the population and sample, the instruent of the research, and the procedures of the research. The fourth chapter discusses about the findings of the research that comprises the description of the test responses and the description of the data, analysis and alternative of revision. And the last chapter containts the

conclusions of what has been discussed in the chapter before and the writers suggestion.