African play, African identity, humour, Mawugbe,
African play, African identity, humour, Mawugbe,
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Date
2021
Authors
Arhin,Ato Kwamina
Essuman, Jonathan
Arhin, Ekua
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Ajote
Abstract
Adhering to the rules governing the writing of multiple-choice test items will ensure quality
and validity. However, realizing this ideal could be challenging for non-native English
language teachers and students. This is especially so for non-native English language teachers
because developing test items in a language that neither they nor their students use as their
mother tongue raises a multitude of issues related to quality and validity. A descriptive study
on this problem was conducted at a Technical University in Ghana which focused on item
writing flaws in a communication skills test. The use of multiple-choice test in Ghanaian
universities has increased over the last decade due to increasing student intake. A 20-item
multiple-choice test in communication skills was administered to 110 students. The test items
were analyzed using a framework informed by standard item writing principles based on the
revised taxonomy of multiple-choice item-writing guides by Haladyna, Downing and
Rodriguez (2002). The facility and discrimination index (DI) was calculated for all the items.
In total, 60% of the items were flawed based on standard items writing principles. The most
violated guideline was wording stems negatively. Pearson correlation analysis indicated a
weak relationship between the difficulty and discrimination indices. Using the discrimination
indices of the flawed items showed that 84.6 % of them had discrimination indices below the
optimal level of 0.40 and above. The lowest DI was recorded by an item with which was worded
negatively. The mean facility of the test was 45%. It was observed that the flawed items were
more difficult than the non-flawed items. The study suggested that test items must be properly
reviewed before they are used to assess students’ knowledge.
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Citation
ARHIN, A. K., Essuman , J., & Arhin, E. . (2021). Analysis of Item Writing Flaws in a Communications Skills Test in a Ghanaian University. African Journal of Teacher Education