Chapter 12 Objectives

After studying this chapter and completing the structured exercises in the computer module, you should be able to do the following.

• Identify the purposes for quantitative item analysis as a component of the assessment design or selection process.

• Describe commonly-used item statistics and their applications (item difficulty, item discrimination, item means, item standard deviations, item-to-total score correlations).
  
• Calculate/interpret item difficulty indices, item discrimination indices and results of distracter analysis for norm-referenced testing applications.
  
• Calculate/interpret item difficulty indices, item discrimination indices and results of distracter analysis for criterion-referenced testing applications.
  
• Recognize the limitations of commonly-used item statistics.

The purpose of the Chapter Highlights is to help you remember key concepts. As you review the summary, click on underlined terms (terms with activated links) to retrieve glossary definitions. If too many terms seem unfamiliar or you miss too many items on the structured comprehension exercises and tests provided for each chapter in this computer module, you may want to re-read the chapter or see your instructor.