Classical and Modern Methods in Item Analysis of Test Tools

Item analysis is a process which examines the examinee’s responses to individual test item (questions) in order to assess the characteristics of those items and of the test as a whole. Item analysis is especially valuable in improving items which will be used again in later tests, but it can also be used to eliminate ambiguous or misleading items in a single test administration. There are different approaches in item analysis. In all approaches general goal is to arrive at tests having minimum items that will yield necessary degree of reliability. Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) are the two broad methodology of test theory. In CTT framework, using the selected sample, some indices like item difficulty, item discriminations are calculated for each item. The quality of item will be decided on the basis of these values. In IRT, which is also known as modern test theory, the item characteristics are decided based on values taken by the parameters of the model chosen for the item response. The parameters are estimated from the samples chosen for the item analysis. Based on the values taken by the parameters for each item, the quality of the item will be decided. This paper tries to explain the item analysis procedure in both classical and Item Response Theory frameworks