the first hurdle an item has to pass is ... a content one ... is the
content that we are asking about ... in the item ... sensible ... important
enough ... to spend 1 of the 6 items worth on the test ... given all the
concepts that could be tested on the test
if the answer to this is yes ... then we can move forward and think about
how difficult should the item be
only after this crucial first screening ...
if the answer is no ... then, it matters not if the item happens to be
difficult or easy ... it should not be used
i am going to go out on a limb here and say ... that, no matter what is
done in mass. ... in the statistics part of the curriculum ... this
particular item fails the first screening test
now, if it were part of a CLASSROOM test in a statistics course ... maybe
(???) it might be ok ... but certainly not on a statewide test ... where
scores have more import to the examinees
the notion that the little doohickey in the box part of a boxplot is the
median .. and not the mean ... just does not rise to a sufficient level of
importance ...
At 03:57 PM 8/26/01 -0500, Olsen, Chris wrote:
>Hello Dennis and All --
>
> Please pardon the formatting of my response here -- apparently I cannot
>choose a different font, so I will bracket my comments by "-->" and "<---."
==============================================================
dennis roberts, penn state university
educational psychology, 8148632401
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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