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Item Analysis

Article · September 2018

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Smriti Arora
Amity University Haryana, Gurgaon, India
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 International Journal of Nursing Science Practice and Research
eISSN: 2455-6351
Vol. 4: Issue 2
www.journalspub.com

Item Analysis
Smriti Arora*
Professor, Amity College of Nursing, Gurugram, Haryana, India

ABSTRACT
Item analysis is usually carried out by nursing students when they prepare questionnaire or
tools for their post graduate research. It is also used by examining bodies who conduct
entrance exams. They assess multiple choice questions (MCQs) for their suitability which are
prepared by the nursing experts. The good MCQs are thus retained in the entrance exam and
poor ones are omitted or modified. Item analysis is done to evaluate the quality of MCQs.
There are three aspects to it, i.e., difficulty index, discrimination index and distractor
effectiveness. A good MCQ can help us identify a good student and a weak student, or a good
candidate from a weaker one.

Keywords: difficulty index, discrimination index, item analysis, multiple choice questions
(MCQs)

*Corresponding Author
E-mail: [email protected]

INTRODUCTION measure of whether an item was too

Item analysis is a process which examines easy or too hard.
students’ response to individual test items (2) Discrimination index: A measure of
(multiple choice questions) in order to whether an item discriminated between
assess the quality of those items and of the students who knew the answer and
test as a whole. It involves statistical tests students who did not.
to permit an item to be included in the test (3) Distracter effectiveness: Determination
or not. It can also be used to eliminate of whether distractors (incorrect but
ambiguous or misleading items. It is a plausible answers) tend to be marked
scientific way of improving the quality of by the less able students and not by the
tests and test items in an item bank. As you intelligent students.
know, a multiple choice question (MCQ)
consists of a stem followed by response Method to do item analysis:
items. In the response items or options (1) Arrange the test papers in rank order
there is one correct answer and three or from the highest score to the lowest
four incorrect options, also known as score.
distractors. (2) Select one third of the papers with high
score and call them the higher group.
Example of an MCQ (3) Select another one third of the papers
Difficulty in breathing is called as: with low scores and call them lower
A. apnea (distractor) group.
B. dyspnea (correct response) (4) Set aside the middle third. (This will
C. orthopnea (distractor) not be used in analysis)
D. eupnea (distractor) (5) Prepare a frequency table by counting
the number of students in the higher
Item analysis consists of three things: group who selected each alternative.
(1) Difficulty index or easiness index: A Similarly count for the lower group.

IJNSPR (2018) 6–7 © JournalsPub 2018. All Rights Reserved Page 6

 Item Analysis Arora

For example, if 90 students appeared for may be some students who did not respond
the test, thirty will be in high group and 30 to the question. Item analysis must be done
in low group. Let us say each item had for each item or MCQ. The table will
four options A, B, C and D. Out of these appear as shown in Table 1.
four options, only one is correct. There

Table 1.
Size of B: correct Not Difficulty Index Discrimination index
Serial no. Group A C D
group response responded (p) (d)
Item No. 1 High group 30 2 20 5 3 0 38 0.56
Low group 30 8 3 1 18 0

 Difficulty Index (p) = (H + L)  100/T To carry out item analysis, a large pool of
 Discrimination index (d)=2  (H – items are given to a large sample of
L)/T participants who are representative of the
where, H= no. of correct responses in target population and then a decision is
higher group, L= no. of correct taken whether to retain an item or
responses in lower group and T= total eliminate unsatisfactory items.
no. of responders from both the groups.
CONCLUSION
General guidelines for difficulty index and Thus, item analysis helps in preparing
discrimination index: good MCQs so that the right candidates
The questions with difficulty index (p): can be selected for various professional
 Between 50 and 60% are considered courses or for recruitment purpose.
good,
 30–70% is acceptable REFERENCES
 above 70% or below 30% require [1] Item analysis. Available from
modification. http://www.uwosh.edu/testing/faculty
-information/test-scoring/score-
The questions with discrimination index reportsssssssssinterpretation/item-
(d): analysis-1 [Accessed on June 2018].
 0.35 and above are considered excellent, [2] Item analysis. Available from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Item_an
 0.25 to 0.34 are good,
alysis [Accessed on June 2018].
 0.20 to 0.24 are acceptable and
 below 0.20 require modification.

IJNSPR (2018) 6–7 © JournalsPub 2018. All Rights Reserved Page 7

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