Developing a Social Studies Achievement Test for High School Students Based on Item-Response Theory (IRT)
Subject Areas : Psychological Models and Methods
A. Orangi
1
(دکترای مدیریت آموزشی/عضو هئیت علمی گروه پژوهشی فناوری آموزشی راهبر)
K. Dorani
2
(عضو هئیت علمی دانشگاه تهران)
Keywords: validity, Reliability, Item Difficulty, Coefficient Cognitive, Item Response Theory,
Abstract :
The purpose of the study was to develop a social study achievement test for high school Students (first grade) based on item-response theory. Method: The sample consisted of 321 high school students in Tehran. Multi-stage cluster sampling was used for selecting the participants. The first step in conducting this exam was to prepare two parallel forms of multiple choice style which on one hand concenatrated on the educational objectives and on the other hand on the content of the lessons. These forms were administered in three preliminary stages, first: the questions were analyzed for any ambiguity in their composition, the comprehension of expressions was tested and the like, in the second stage which was the practical stage, consisted of determining the difficulty level of the questions, the students ability to recognize questions and also the level of interdependence of questions with the overall score etc …. Both of these forms were administrated to the sample group in a ten day interval. Results: The results show that: the constructed forms were of high reliability, they were at the same time acknowledgeable through the analysis based on the classical Method and they were also in accordance with the three–factors of the Item Response Theory. Taking into account the Item characteristic curve, both of the forms produced the knowledge for the students with average ability. In this analysis a kind of rank – percentile norm for both sex was formulated. Conclusion: In general, based on IRT a social study achievement test with acceptable psychometric properties was developed.
