Research Instrument RESEARCH METHODOLOGY and FINDINGS

4. Revising the summative test items based on the result of data analysis using Kenneth D. Moore’s guideline 7 :  The central issues or problem should be stated clearly in the stem, and there should be no ambiguity in terminology.  A stem and the alternatives should be in one page.  Avoid to provide grammatical or contextual clues to the correct answer.  Use language that even the most unskilled readers will understand. Keep the reading requirement question to a minimum. Write brief stems and accurate choices.  Avoid to use absolute terms such as always, never, none in the stem or alternatives.  Alternatives should be grammatically correct. The use of is or are, can help students to guess the correct response. All alternatives should be fit the stems to avoid giving clues to items that are incorrect.  Avoid the use of negatives such as not, except, and least and double negatives in the stem or alternatives. If negatives are used in the stem, put the as near the end of the stem as possible.  Avoid giving structural clues. This means, not to use one letter for the alternatives than the other, or make a pattern of correct response.  Make sure to use “all of the above” and “none of the above” with care. Because, “all of the above” is usually have poorer response than “none of the above”; because all the alternatives must be corret.  Avoid pulling statements directly from textbook. The objective of the test is for students understanding not memorization.  Alternatives should be plausible to less knowledgeable students. Write distractors with common errors, errors that likely, and erroneous common sense solution 7 Kenneth D. Moore, Effective Instructional Strategies: From Theory to Practice, Washington DC: SAGE Publication Ltd., 2012, pp. 270-271.

F. Method of the Study

This study considered as quantitative approach due the writer use statistic method in order to analyze difficulty index and discrimination index using a statistical analysis formula which also has been stated in chapter two. This study categorized as content analysis. Because this study, studying the content of document especially in written text. To gather the document needed, the writer collects all suitable documents. Those documents are the English odd summative paper test, the softcopy of students’ answer sheet and answer key.

G. Data Description

The writer analyzes item difficulty, discriminating index, and distracter effectiveness in multiple-choice question of the English summative test. To get the data, she took the students’ answer sheets and the English odd summative test document to be analyzed. The data that the writer used in this study is the English summative test for odd semester. The total number of the items are 40 questions, with all of multiple-choice items. The test was held on Wednesday, December 11 th , 2013 with the given time 90 minutes. In doing this analysis, the writer took 27 percents of students’ answer sheet to determining upper and lower group students. For upper group students is defined as as the students who had good performed in a test, and the lower group can be defined as the students who had bad performed in a test. Therefore, from 27 percents from 161 students there are 43 students answer sheets for each upper group and lower group students. Another 75 students answeer sheets categorized as middle group students. This middle group students was put aside because it has average score. The data collected were analyzed by using some criteria in order to know whether the items of english summative test are qualified based on Arikunto’s or not. The first criterion is difficulty index, it is considered to be a good item test, if it has difficulty index range from 0.30 – 0.70. Second criterion is discrimination