THE EFFECT OF ITEM TYPE AND TEST FORMAT ON LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY AND MEAN ITEM DISCRIMINATION INDEX IN ACHIEVEMENT TESTS FOR NURSES.
Contributors: University of Pennsylvania.
Published: 1988
Number of pages: 204
Subjects: Education, Tests and Measurements.
Description: The few research studies involving the effect of item type and format upon the measurement of knowledge have provided mixed results. No research has been done about the effect of using the case study format.

This study sought to find answers to the questions: Is there a difference in mean difficulty level and mean item discrimination index between nursing achievement tests consisting of various item types arranged within the two different formats? If a difference does exist, is it related to item type, test format, or both? The study also assesses the effect of item type and format on test validity and reliability.

Six parallel exams were constructed from a set of 12 learning objectives written for the concept of fluids and electrolytes. The exams consisted of items of one of three types (multiple choice, multiple true-false, and short answer) in one of two formats (case study and non-case study). The tests were administered to 89 undergraduate, junior-level nursing students at a private, religious-affiliated, suburban university located outside Philadelphia. Each student received one test containing one of the item and format types. This allowed 14 to 15 subjects for each of the six experimental conditions.

A statistically significant difference between the alpha coefficients of reliability for the six exams was found. The more discriminating tests were more reliable, and the less discriminating tests were less reliable. Differences among the validity coefficients for the six tests were not statisically significant.

Test format did not significantly effect either difficulty level or discrimination index. Item type did have an effect on both difficulty level and discrimination index. Multiple true-false tests were the easiest, followed by multiple choice tests. Short answer tests were the most difficult and discriminating. Least discriminating were the multiple choice tests, followed by the multiple true-false tests.

While item type is an important factor in determining test difficulty and test discrimination, test format is not.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1437.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1988.

School code: 0175.