AN ANALYSIS STUDY: DO NATIONAL EXAMINATION ITEMS OF ENGLISH SUBJECT CONTAIN TEST-WISENESS?

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 Malang city. 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 meant that test-wiseness did exist in national examination items and the appearance affected the students, especially those coming from high level school who had good cognitive ability. It was suggested to the test developer of national examination and English teachers to carefully develop a test, considering the three test-wiseness subscales, namely stem option, similar-option, and item giveaway. The headmaster and English teachers community should hold a teacher training on assessment. For the future researcher, analysing the test-wiseness of the future national examination items with many more new sources and broader population is still worthly needed.