Item Indices

MULTIPLE CHOICE ITEMS

Item Facility (IF)

IF = # of students answering item

correctly
Total # of students responding to
that item
Including easy items (.85) builds
20/20 = 1 1 = too easy on affective feelings of success
0/20 = 0 0 = too hard among lower-ability students.
They can also serve as warm-up
items.
15/20 = .75 Difficult items (.15) can provide
10/10 = .50 a challenge to the highest ability
students.

Appropriate test items will generally have Ifs between .15 and .85
Item Discrimination (ID)

The extent to which an item differentiates between high- and low- ability test-
takers.

That is, an item that garners correct responses from most of the
good high-ability group
discrimination power
and incorrect responses from most of the low ability group has:
30 students, divide them to form three groups: 10 top scores, 10 middle scores
and the lowest 10. Eliminate the middle group.

Item #23 No. Correct No. Incorrect

High-ability ss (top 10) 7 3
Low-ability ss (bottom 10) 2 8

ID = High group no. correct Low group no. = 7-2 = 5 = .50

correct x 20 10
x Total of students being compared
Item Discrimination (ID)
ID = High group no. correct Low group no. = 7-2 = 5 = .50
correct x 20 10
x Total of students being compared
This item has a moderate level of ID.

What happens with the following examples:

Item #23 No. No.

Correct Incorrect =0
High-ability ss (top 10) 10 0
Low-ability ss (bottom 10 0
10)
Item #23 No. No.
Correct Incorrect
=1
High-ability ss (top 10) 10 0
Low-ability ss (bottom 0 10
10)
ID = 0 has no discriminating power, ID = 1 has a high
discriminating power.
Distractor Efficiency
A very important measure of multiple choise items. The efficiency of distractors is the
extent to which:

The distractors lure a sufficient number of test takers, especially lower ability ones, and
Those responses are somewhat evenly distributed across all distractors

A B C D E

High-ability ss (10) 0 1 7 0 2
Low-ability ss (10) 3 5 2 0 0

No mathematical formula is needed here!