AN ACHIEVEMENT TEST IN READING COMPREHEN
AN ACHIEVEMENT TEST IN READING COMPREHENSION, GRAMMAR
AWARENESS AND LITERATURE FOR GRADE TEN STUDENTS OF ANGELICUM
PRIMAROSA SCHOOL, AY. 2015-2016
Clark Dominic L. Alipasa and Manasseh T. Ranada
ENG640m: Language Testing and Evaluation
De La Salle University, Manila
I.
Introduction
K to 12 (also K-12) is an education system under the Department of Education
that aims to enhance learners’ basic skills, produce more competent citizens, and prepare
graduates
for
lifelong
learning
and
employment.“K” stands
for
Kindergarten
and “12” refers to the succeeding 12 years of basic education (6 years of elementary
education, 4 years of junior high school, and 2 years of senior high school)
(K12Philippines, 2015).
It has been implemented in the country when President Benigno Aquino III signed
it into law in 2013 to purposively focus on lifelong learning competencies or skills to
produce graduates who are qualified and capable to work. Thus, language as the basis of
all communication, the primary instrument of though and the foundation of all human
relationship is of major importance and one of the core subects in this K-12 enhanced
basic education program.
In regard with the role of language in the 21st century learning, the effective
language arts and multiliteracies curriculum aims to help learners acquire highlydeveloped literacy skills that enable them to understand that English language is a
dynamic social process which responds to and reflects changing social conditions, and
that English is inextricably involved with values, beliefs and ways of thinking about
ourselves and the world we live in.
Integrating the above-mentioned principles, the conceptual framework in the next
page shows that the heart of the LAMC is making meaning through language and that it
has five (5) components (DepEd, 2013) in which assessment play a highly-significant
role.
The Conceptual Framework
The framework below shows that assessments are one of pillars of the k-12
English Language Arts and Multiliteracies curriculum. It has five components: learning
processes, effective language use (understanding of culutres, languages, processes and
strategies), the macro skills making meaning through language, and holistic assessment
which serves as feedback of its effectiveness.
Significance of the Study
A holistic assessment should be administered in order to garner valid and reliable
feedbacks that will be communicated to benefit students, teachers, administrators and curriculum
developers who are all involved in the integrated language arts learning process.
There are integrated language arts domains which are reorganized and aligned with the
five sub-strands, and these three domains, which appear below, deem consistent in the reading
and writing fields that are prevalent in written summative assessments. The table in the next page
shows that alignment of reading comprehension, grammar awareness and literature to the reading
and writing sub-strands:
LANGUAGE
ARTS
DOMAINS
Reading
Comprehens
ion
informationa
l text
Grammar
Awareness
and
Structure
Attitude
towards
language,
literacy and
literature
LISTENI
NG
SPEAKI
NG
READIN
G
WRITIN
G
VIEWIN
G
Rationale and Statement of the Problem
Achievement tests used to evaluate students reading and writing skills should be holistic
to measure these three important areas. Relatively, the following are the questions that this study
seeks to answer:
1. In which learning domain among reading comprehension, grammar awareness and
literature have students encountered troubles or difficulties in answering?
2. Which component among knowledge, process and understanding contain the most
number of acceptable and/or improvable items?
3. Which items in the achievement test require to be revised, replaced or removed based on
the item difficulty indeces?
When the answers to these questions are sought, the target output of this study is to create
and present an achievement test in English for grade 10 students that evaluate their competencies
in reading comprehension, grammar awareness and structure and literature. With the results of
the pilot administration and the subsequent item analysis, items will be improved as necessary in
order to generate a test which is considered to be valid and reliable to assess students’
longitudinal language learning.
II
Methods
In order to generate an achievement test that can validly and reliably evaluate students’
learning of important competencies in reading comprehenion, grammar and literature, a pilot
administration will take place, and through the presentation and analysis results, the test
constructors can deliberate about appropriacy and complexity of every item whether or not they
should be retained, replaced or revised.
Context of the Study
The pilot administration of the sample achievement test in English takes place in
Angelicum Primarosa Montessori School, a private Catholic institution inside the Villa de
Primarosa Village in the City of Imus, Cavite, which offers complete basic education (from
nursery to Grade 11 the current year) since 2003. This school primarily serves as the research
site and target institution of the study. The said test is administered in the Grade 10 classroom in
the Day 1 of their final exam. The media of instruction used in the school are Filipino and
English, yet Filipino is more commonly used, for this is the native language of the majority (if
not all). The above-named institution also follows the prescribed K-12 enhanced basic education
curriculum of the K-12, its updated grading system, and the approaches that are advised
therealong.
Ethical Considerations
The permission of the school administrators is asked prior to the entrustment of the
reproduced questionnaires to the grade 10 English teacher and adviser of the Grade 10 students
of Angelicum Primarosa Montessori School. Accordingly, the grade 10 students are informed
beforehand about the said achievement test that will contain test items for reading
comprehension, grammar and literature. The teachers are also oriented about the purpose of the
study and about the instructions or what the students are expected to do in every part.
Furthermore, all the participating students of grade ten are also aware of the rationale of the test
administration, and their scores will have no bearing in their 4th quarter grades or current term
standing, nor their names will be mentioned individually in the term paper that will be presented
in De La Salle University.
The Research Participants
The participants of the study are forty (40) grade ten students of Angelicum Primarosa
Montessori School in the academic year 2015-2016. The group is composed of twenty-two girls
and eighteen boys who are all outgoing completers of the junior high school curriculum of the K12 in the current year. Most of them are residents of Villa de Primarosa where the school is also
located. They have varied economic backgrounds, but most of them have been students of the
said school since their 7th grade, while some have been in the school since pre-elementary, and
notably, they are the first compliants of the recently-implemented K-12 basic education
curriculum—first batch of completers and soon-to-be graduates of the first ever Grade 12 or
senior high school in the Philippines in 2018.
Research Instrument
The achievement test consists of 52 items: 25 points for knowlede, 15 for process, and 12
for understanding. This is based on the required percentage that easy up to the most challenging
item should comprise in a test. The types of test for the knowledge part are identification and
error recognition with the following learning competencies:
identify the kind of sensory imagery used;
determine how literary devices can be used and interpreted;
use pronouns effectively; and
enumerate elements of a narrative.
Then the process part is made up of short-response essay questions and sentencecompletion items with the following competencies which are all based on the DepEd English
curriculum guide as well:
infer the theme by analyzing the elements specific to a selection;
explain how specific element build up the theme of a selection; and
use reflexive and intensive pronouns.
The last part is composed of a reading comprehension test each of the three questions to
be answered by a composition seek to cover the following competencies:
make generalizations;
use patterns and techniques of developing an argumentative essay; and
evaluate literature as a vehicle of expressing and resolving conflicts between and among
individuals or groups.
Copies of the questionnaires being pertained hereunto are attached in the index section.
III
Results
The following table shows the results and analysis of the administered test for Grade 10
in Angelicum Primarosa School.
Item
Num
ber
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Number of
Correct
Answers
20
20
19
19
19
5
3
10
0
3
16
14
16
15
20
7
18
16
19
10
11
13
%
Corr
ect
95%
95%
90%
90%
90%
24%
14%
48%
0%
14%
76%
67%
76%
71%
95%
33%
86%
76%
94%
48%
52%
62%
Difficulty Level
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
moderate
very difficult
moderate
very difficult
very difficult
easy
moderate
easy
easy
very easy
moderate
very easy
easy
very easy
moderate
moderate
moderate
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
14
12
10
11
11
11
11
11
12
19
16
17
5
14
13
16
13
15
16
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
6
5
5
5
67%
57%
48%
52%
52%
52%
52%
52%
58%
90%
76%
81%
24%
67%
62%
76%
62%
71%
76%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
29%
24%
24%
24%
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
very easy
easy
easy
difficult
moderate
moderate
easy
moderate
easy
easy
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
difficult
difficult
difficult
difficult
Item Analysis
Item analysis is a process which examines student responses to individual test items
(questions) in order to assess the quality of those items and of the test as a whole. Item analysis
improves the test items that will be used again in later tests. It can also be used to eliminate
ambiguous or misleading items in a single test.
Item Difficulty
In the given result, the KNOWLEDGE part or test items nos. 1-25 with one correct
alternative worth a single point the item difficulty is simply the percentage of students who
answer an item correctly. In this case, it is also equal to the item mean. The item difficulty index
ranges from 0 to 100; the higher the value, the easier the question.
Item difficulty is relevant for determining whether students have learned the concept
being tested. It also plays an important role in the ability of an item to discriminate between
students who know the tested material and those who do not. The item will have low
discrimination if it is so difficult that almost everyone gets it wrong or guesses, or so easy that
almost everyone gets it right.
To maximize item discrimination, desirable difficulty levels are slightly higher than
midway between chance and perfect scores for the item. (The chance score for five-option
questions, for example, is 20 because one-fifth of the students responding to the question could
be expected to choose the correct option by guessing.)
Item Discrimination
Item discrimination refers to the ability of an item to differentiate among students on the
basis of how well they know the material being tested. Various hand calculation procedures have
traditionally been used to compare item responses to total test scores using high and low scoring
groups of students. Computerized analyses provide more accurate assessment of the
discrimination power of items because they take into account responses of all students rather
than just high and low scoring groups. The following table shows the item discrimination.
INDICES OF DIFFICULTY AND DISCRIMINATION
(BY HOPKINS AND ANTES)
INDEX
DIFFICULTY DISCRIMINATIO
N
0.86
0.71
0.30
0.15
0.14
above
– 0.85
– 0.70
– 0.29
below
Very Easy
Easy
Moderate
Difficult
Very Difficult
To be discarded
To be revised
Very good items
To be revised
To be discarded
The following shows item nos. 1-25 based on the the difficulty level and the item
discrimination. The items are arranged from the very easy to very difficult. We can also see the
number of students who answered each item correctly and its percentage.
Item
Numb
er
Number of
Correct Answers
%
Corr
ect
Difficulty
Level
Discriminatio
n
1
2
15
3
4
5
19
17
11
13
18
14
12
23
22
24
21
8
20
20
20
20
19
19
19
19
18
16
16
16
15
14
14
13
12
11
10
10
95%
95%
95%
90%
90%
90%
94%
86%
76%
76%
76%
71%
67%
67%
62%
57%
52%
48%
48%
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
easy
easy
easy
easy
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be revised
To be revised
To be revised
To be revised
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
25
16
6
7
10
9
10
7
5
3
3
0
48%
33%
24%
14%
14%
0%
moderate
moderate
moderate
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
As we have tabulated the results, we have analyzed that there are 8 very easy items that
needed to be discarded, as well as 3 very difficult items. Also, there are 4 easy items that are
necessary to be revised. Furthermore, there are 10 moderate items that are very good items which
will be kept in this test.
Moving to the second part of the assessment which is Process, items 26 to 31 are about
inferring the theme of selected fables. Out of 21 respondents, only 11 are able to formulate a
satisfactory theme. With the difficulty index of 0.52, these items on inferring the theme of the
selections may be retained and considered in the improved questionnaire for the achievement
test, for the percentage shows that the test type is not so easy and not so difficult. Thus, the first
part of the process assessment is just appropriate to the level of the target learners.
Whereas the first part of the process is just labeled moderate, the items second part about
the proper use of pronouns and identifying whether they are intensive or reflextive garner
different difficulty indeces:
Item 32 is very easy, while 33 and 34 are easy. We can revise the introductory part of the
paragraph to completed with a more challenging setting; yet, giving easy items in the preliminary
items of a part may also be advisable according to other sources. Items 36 and 37 with 0.67 and
0.62 are considered moderate, so these can be retained. nonetheless 38, 40 and 41 are marked
easy, so we can develop the context and/or add more words and modifiers, for the students to be
more able to critically think and decide what the antecedents are, and which pronouns correctly
agree with them. To sum up, it is not very necessary to drop or remove the items, and only few
revisions are appropriate to be effected to the given paragraph.
The last part of the assessment is understanding wherein there is an argumentative speech
provided for the test takers to read and analize in order for them to answer the questions that
follow based on what are asked and the designed rubric. As to the results of the item analysis,
most of the questions are marked as difficult and very difficult. Although test questions are
normally arranged from easy to difficult, revising and replacing these items may also deem very
important especially the points given to this part are very integral in the composition of their
grades. To respond positively to the item difficulty indices, replacing these short-essay reponse
essay items into selective response type test items where students will be given with a set of
choices to choose from can certainly lessen the complexity of this test, making it more suitable to
their current or average lexile level in reading.
In conclusion, most items in the beggining or Knowledge part are easy, and the
concluding essay items in the understanding are mostly difficult. To generate an achievement
assessment which is more valid, reliable and practical, adjustments and modifications are to be
undertaken to cater the needs, capability, aptitude, and level of the grade 10 students in reading
comprehension, grammar awareness and structure, and world literature.
References
DepEd (2013). K-12 Curriculum Guide - English. K-12 Basic Education Curriculum. Retrieved
from http://www.deped.gov.ph/sites/default/files/English%20CG%20Grade%20110%2001.30.2014.pdf
K12Philippines (2015). What is K-12? Retrieved April 2016 from http://k12philippines.com/
University of Washington - Office of Educational Assessment. Retrieved from
http://www.washington.edu/assessment/scanning-scoring/scoring/reports/item-analysis/
AWARENESS AND LITERATURE FOR GRADE TEN STUDENTS OF ANGELICUM
PRIMAROSA SCHOOL, AY. 2015-2016
Clark Dominic L. Alipasa and Manasseh T. Ranada
ENG640m: Language Testing and Evaluation
De La Salle University, Manila
I.
Introduction
K to 12 (also K-12) is an education system under the Department of Education
that aims to enhance learners’ basic skills, produce more competent citizens, and prepare
graduates
for
lifelong
learning
and
employment.“K” stands
for
Kindergarten
and “12” refers to the succeeding 12 years of basic education (6 years of elementary
education, 4 years of junior high school, and 2 years of senior high school)
(K12Philippines, 2015).
It has been implemented in the country when President Benigno Aquino III signed
it into law in 2013 to purposively focus on lifelong learning competencies or skills to
produce graduates who are qualified and capable to work. Thus, language as the basis of
all communication, the primary instrument of though and the foundation of all human
relationship is of major importance and one of the core subects in this K-12 enhanced
basic education program.
In regard with the role of language in the 21st century learning, the effective
language arts and multiliteracies curriculum aims to help learners acquire highlydeveloped literacy skills that enable them to understand that English language is a
dynamic social process which responds to and reflects changing social conditions, and
that English is inextricably involved with values, beliefs and ways of thinking about
ourselves and the world we live in.
Integrating the above-mentioned principles, the conceptual framework in the next
page shows that the heart of the LAMC is making meaning through language and that it
has five (5) components (DepEd, 2013) in which assessment play a highly-significant
role.
The Conceptual Framework
The framework below shows that assessments are one of pillars of the k-12
English Language Arts and Multiliteracies curriculum. It has five components: learning
processes, effective language use (understanding of culutres, languages, processes and
strategies), the macro skills making meaning through language, and holistic assessment
which serves as feedback of its effectiveness.
Significance of the Study
A holistic assessment should be administered in order to garner valid and reliable
feedbacks that will be communicated to benefit students, teachers, administrators and curriculum
developers who are all involved in the integrated language arts learning process.
There are integrated language arts domains which are reorganized and aligned with the
five sub-strands, and these three domains, which appear below, deem consistent in the reading
and writing fields that are prevalent in written summative assessments. The table in the next page
shows that alignment of reading comprehension, grammar awareness and literature to the reading
and writing sub-strands:
LANGUAGE
ARTS
DOMAINS
Reading
Comprehens
ion
informationa
l text
Grammar
Awareness
and
Structure
Attitude
towards
language,
literacy and
literature
LISTENI
NG
SPEAKI
NG
READIN
G
WRITIN
G
VIEWIN
G
Rationale and Statement of the Problem
Achievement tests used to evaluate students reading and writing skills should be holistic
to measure these three important areas. Relatively, the following are the questions that this study
seeks to answer:
1. In which learning domain among reading comprehension, grammar awareness and
literature have students encountered troubles or difficulties in answering?
2. Which component among knowledge, process and understanding contain the most
number of acceptable and/or improvable items?
3. Which items in the achievement test require to be revised, replaced or removed based on
the item difficulty indeces?
When the answers to these questions are sought, the target output of this study is to create
and present an achievement test in English for grade 10 students that evaluate their competencies
in reading comprehension, grammar awareness and structure and literature. With the results of
the pilot administration and the subsequent item analysis, items will be improved as necessary in
order to generate a test which is considered to be valid and reliable to assess students’
longitudinal language learning.
II
Methods
In order to generate an achievement test that can validly and reliably evaluate students’
learning of important competencies in reading comprehenion, grammar and literature, a pilot
administration will take place, and through the presentation and analysis results, the test
constructors can deliberate about appropriacy and complexity of every item whether or not they
should be retained, replaced or revised.
Context of the Study
The pilot administration of the sample achievement test in English takes place in
Angelicum Primarosa Montessori School, a private Catholic institution inside the Villa de
Primarosa Village in the City of Imus, Cavite, which offers complete basic education (from
nursery to Grade 11 the current year) since 2003. This school primarily serves as the research
site and target institution of the study. The said test is administered in the Grade 10 classroom in
the Day 1 of their final exam. The media of instruction used in the school are Filipino and
English, yet Filipino is more commonly used, for this is the native language of the majority (if
not all). The above-named institution also follows the prescribed K-12 enhanced basic education
curriculum of the K-12, its updated grading system, and the approaches that are advised
therealong.
Ethical Considerations
The permission of the school administrators is asked prior to the entrustment of the
reproduced questionnaires to the grade 10 English teacher and adviser of the Grade 10 students
of Angelicum Primarosa Montessori School. Accordingly, the grade 10 students are informed
beforehand about the said achievement test that will contain test items for reading
comprehension, grammar and literature. The teachers are also oriented about the purpose of the
study and about the instructions or what the students are expected to do in every part.
Furthermore, all the participating students of grade ten are also aware of the rationale of the test
administration, and their scores will have no bearing in their 4th quarter grades or current term
standing, nor their names will be mentioned individually in the term paper that will be presented
in De La Salle University.
The Research Participants
The participants of the study are forty (40) grade ten students of Angelicum Primarosa
Montessori School in the academic year 2015-2016. The group is composed of twenty-two girls
and eighteen boys who are all outgoing completers of the junior high school curriculum of the K12 in the current year. Most of them are residents of Villa de Primarosa where the school is also
located. They have varied economic backgrounds, but most of them have been students of the
said school since their 7th grade, while some have been in the school since pre-elementary, and
notably, they are the first compliants of the recently-implemented K-12 basic education
curriculum—first batch of completers and soon-to-be graduates of the first ever Grade 12 or
senior high school in the Philippines in 2018.
Research Instrument
The achievement test consists of 52 items: 25 points for knowlede, 15 for process, and 12
for understanding. This is based on the required percentage that easy up to the most challenging
item should comprise in a test. The types of test for the knowledge part are identification and
error recognition with the following learning competencies:
identify the kind of sensory imagery used;
determine how literary devices can be used and interpreted;
use pronouns effectively; and
enumerate elements of a narrative.
Then the process part is made up of short-response essay questions and sentencecompletion items with the following competencies which are all based on the DepEd English
curriculum guide as well:
infer the theme by analyzing the elements specific to a selection;
explain how specific element build up the theme of a selection; and
use reflexive and intensive pronouns.
The last part is composed of a reading comprehension test each of the three questions to
be answered by a composition seek to cover the following competencies:
make generalizations;
use patterns and techniques of developing an argumentative essay; and
evaluate literature as a vehicle of expressing and resolving conflicts between and among
individuals or groups.
Copies of the questionnaires being pertained hereunto are attached in the index section.
III
Results
The following table shows the results and analysis of the administered test for Grade 10
in Angelicum Primarosa School.
Item
Num
ber
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Number of
Correct
Answers
20
20
19
19
19
5
3
10
0
3
16
14
16
15
20
7
18
16
19
10
11
13
%
Corr
ect
95%
95%
90%
90%
90%
24%
14%
48%
0%
14%
76%
67%
76%
71%
95%
33%
86%
76%
94%
48%
52%
62%
Difficulty Level
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
moderate
very difficult
moderate
very difficult
very difficult
easy
moderate
easy
easy
very easy
moderate
very easy
easy
very easy
moderate
moderate
moderate
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
14
12
10
11
11
11
11
11
12
19
16
17
5
14
13
16
13
15
16
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
6
5
5
5
67%
57%
48%
52%
52%
52%
52%
52%
58%
90%
76%
81%
24%
67%
62%
76%
62%
71%
76%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
29%
24%
24%
24%
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
very easy
easy
easy
difficult
moderate
moderate
easy
moderate
easy
easy
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
difficult
difficult
difficult
difficult
Item Analysis
Item analysis is a process which examines student responses to individual test items
(questions) in order to assess the quality of those items and of the test as a whole. Item analysis
improves the test items that will be used again in later tests. It can also be used to eliminate
ambiguous or misleading items in a single test.
Item Difficulty
In the given result, the KNOWLEDGE part or test items nos. 1-25 with one correct
alternative worth a single point the item difficulty is simply the percentage of students who
answer an item correctly. In this case, it is also equal to the item mean. The item difficulty index
ranges from 0 to 100; the higher the value, the easier the question.
Item difficulty is relevant for determining whether students have learned the concept
being tested. It also plays an important role in the ability of an item to discriminate between
students who know the tested material and those who do not. The item will have low
discrimination if it is so difficult that almost everyone gets it wrong or guesses, or so easy that
almost everyone gets it right.
To maximize item discrimination, desirable difficulty levels are slightly higher than
midway between chance and perfect scores for the item. (The chance score for five-option
questions, for example, is 20 because one-fifth of the students responding to the question could
be expected to choose the correct option by guessing.)
Item Discrimination
Item discrimination refers to the ability of an item to differentiate among students on the
basis of how well they know the material being tested. Various hand calculation procedures have
traditionally been used to compare item responses to total test scores using high and low scoring
groups of students. Computerized analyses provide more accurate assessment of the
discrimination power of items because they take into account responses of all students rather
than just high and low scoring groups. The following table shows the item discrimination.
INDICES OF DIFFICULTY AND DISCRIMINATION
(BY HOPKINS AND ANTES)
INDEX
DIFFICULTY DISCRIMINATIO
N
0.86
0.71
0.30
0.15
0.14
above
– 0.85
– 0.70
– 0.29
below
Very Easy
Easy
Moderate
Difficult
Very Difficult
To be discarded
To be revised
Very good items
To be revised
To be discarded
The following shows item nos. 1-25 based on the the difficulty level and the item
discrimination. The items are arranged from the very easy to very difficult. We can also see the
number of students who answered each item correctly and its percentage.
Item
Numb
er
Number of
Correct Answers
%
Corr
ect
Difficulty
Level
Discriminatio
n
1
2
15
3
4
5
19
17
11
13
18
14
12
23
22
24
21
8
20
20
20
20
19
19
19
19
18
16
16
16
15
14
14
13
12
11
10
10
95%
95%
95%
90%
90%
90%
94%
86%
76%
76%
76%
71%
67%
67%
62%
57%
52%
48%
48%
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
very easy
easy
easy
easy
easy
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
moderate
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be revised
To be revised
To be revised
To be revised
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
25
16
6
7
10
9
10
7
5
3
3
0
48%
33%
24%
14%
14%
0%
moderate
moderate
moderate
very difficult
very difficult
very difficult
Very good items
Very good items
Very good items
To be discarded
To be discarded
To be discarded
As we have tabulated the results, we have analyzed that there are 8 very easy items that
needed to be discarded, as well as 3 very difficult items. Also, there are 4 easy items that are
necessary to be revised. Furthermore, there are 10 moderate items that are very good items which
will be kept in this test.
Moving to the second part of the assessment which is Process, items 26 to 31 are about
inferring the theme of selected fables. Out of 21 respondents, only 11 are able to formulate a
satisfactory theme. With the difficulty index of 0.52, these items on inferring the theme of the
selections may be retained and considered in the improved questionnaire for the achievement
test, for the percentage shows that the test type is not so easy and not so difficult. Thus, the first
part of the process assessment is just appropriate to the level of the target learners.
Whereas the first part of the process is just labeled moderate, the items second part about
the proper use of pronouns and identifying whether they are intensive or reflextive garner
different difficulty indeces:
Item 32 is very easy, while 33 and 34 are easy. We can revise the introductory part of the
paragraph to completed with a more challenging setting; yet, giving easy items in the preliminary
items of a part may also be advisable according to other sources. Items 36 and 37 with 0.67 and
0.62 are considered moderate, so these can be retained. nonetheless 38, 40 and 41 are marked
easy, so we can develop the context and/or add more words and modifiers, for the students to be
more able to critically think and decide what the antecedents are, and which pronouns correctly
agree with them. To sum up, it is not very necessary to drop or remove the items, and only few
revisions are appropriate to be effected to the given paragraph.
The last part of the assessment is understanding wherein there is an argumentative speech
provided for the test takers to read and analize in order for them to answer the questions that
follow based on what are asked and the designed rubric. As to the results of the item analysis,
most of the questions are marked as difficult and very difficult. Although test questions are
normally arranged from easy to difficult, revising and replacing these items may also deem very
important especially the points given to this part are very integral in the composition of their
grades. To respond positively to the item difficulty indices, replacing these short-essay reponse
essay items into selective response type test items where students will be given with a set of
choices to choose from can certainly lessen the complexity of this test, making it more suitable to
their current or average lexile level in reading.
In conclusion, most items in the beggining or Knowledge part are easy, and the
concluding essay items in the understanding are mostly difficult. To generate an achievement
assessment which is more valid, reliable and practical, adjustments and modifications are to be
undertaken to cater the needs, capability, aptitude, and level of the grade 10 students in reading
comprehension, grammar awareness and structure, and world literature.
References
DepEd (2013). K-12 Curriculum Guide - English. K-12 Basic Education Curriculum. Retrieved
from http://www.deped.gov.ph/sites/default/files/English%20CG%20Grade%20110%2001.30.2014.pdf
K12Philippines (2015). What is K-12? Retrieved April 2016 from http://k12philippines.com/
University of Washington - Office of Educational Assessment. Retrieved from
http://www.washington.edu/assessment/scanning-scoring/scoring/reports/item-analysis/