ANALYSING TEST-WISENESS OF NATIONAL EXAMINATION ITEMS OF ENGLISH SUBJECT FOR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

This study aimed to analyse the test-wiseness of three sets of national examination items for junior high school students, the year of 2016, 2017 and 2018.The reasearcher investigated which test-wiseness subscale(s) appeared, how frequent the test-wiseness appeared, and how item validity, item difficulty, item discrimination, distractor effectiveness and the reliability were related to the items having the test-wiseness for the students studying at higher, middle and lower schools at Kota Malang. The research design was quantitative evaluation research. The steps to conduct this research were 1) determining test-wiseness subscales for ESL/EFL; 2) analysing the data based on the subscales; 3) counting  the appeared subscales and the frequency; 4) checking the item analysis; and 5) drawing conclusion. The findings showed that similar-option, stem-option and item give-away were the appeared subscales. There were 15,3%  items having test-wiseness. The statistical analysis showed that the items having test-wiseness did not have any problems with the validity, the difficulty index, the distractors effectiveness, except from those from the lower level school. This means that test-wiseness do exist in national examination items and the appearance affects the students, especially those coming from high level school who have good cognitive ability. It is suggested to the test developer of national examination and English teachers to carefully develop a test, for the headmaster and English teachers community to hold a teacher training on assessment. For the future researcher, analysing the test-wisenessof the future national examination items with many more new sources and broader population is still worthly needed.