ANALYZING STUDENTS RESPONSES IN MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS (MCQS) USING ITEM ANALYSIS

Assessment is an integral part of any academic programme. It indicates how much learning is done by students from the curriculum. Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) are commonly used as formative and summative assessment components. Item Analysis is a technique for determining the quality of each individual item in a test. It helps to analyze the learning process in students and improve upon the Item writing techniques.The aim of this study is to evaluate items i.e. Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) using Item Analysis parameters to (i) analyse the quality of items in a test (ii) examine the relation between difficulty index (p) and discrimination index (DI) (iii) find out the distractor(s). A test having 20 questions was given to students of research scholarsenrolled in various disciplines. A total of 32 responses received from students. Each item i.e. each MCQ wasanalysed for Difficulty Index DIF I or p-value and Discrimination Index (DI) and to find the relationship between them. The Distractor analysis was done to identify the distractors effecting students choices. The difficulty index DIF I or p-value of 12(60%) items lying in the range of(30%-70%) indicated that items were in acceptable range while another6(30%)items were found easy where difficulty index (DIF I >=70%) and 2(10%) items were hard with DI =0.35 indicated that the items were excellent. The mean difficulty index and discrimination index were found as 59.72% and 0.25 respectively. As majority of items were in excellent and acceptable range, indicates that test was well designed and students scored good scores. This helps faculty to analyze the students knowledge and understanding about the curriculum.