Item Analysis of Tool to Examine the Effect of E-Module on the Academic Achievement of Chemistry Students at Secondary Level

Abstract

This study was conducted to analyze test items by measuring quantitative characteristics (difficulty level and discrimination index). There were 25 MCQ type test items designed by using first two chapters of Chemistry Class 10^th. This test was used as a pretest to examine the “Effect of e-module on the Academic Achievement of Chemistry Students at Secondary Level”. Researcher selected 150 students through multistage random sampling from district Gujrat for item analysis. A total of 150 students were used to measure the difficulty index. Researcher arranged the students in descending order and selected 33% high achievers and 33% low achiever by taking a total of 100 students (50 from HEs and 50 from LEs). In this way, 50 top students from high achievers and 50 bottom students from low achievers were selected for Item discrimination. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics. Findings revealed that 18 items out of 25 were valid. Seven test items (2, 12, 15, 16, 19, 20 and 25) were rejected from the analysis of difficulty index. Out of these seven, difficulty index value for six items was very high (>70). Only one item (19) was difficult and rejected due to the very low value of the difficulty index (< 29). 18 items were retained after necessary revision. Discrimination index of 25 items showed that 18 items were discriminant after the revision of marginal items. It was concluded that 18 items out of 25 were valid based on the Difficulty index and Discrimination index used as a pretest. It was recommended that item analysis is a useful method to ensure the validity and reliability of test items.