Calculate Statistics item analysis is a particularly valuable tool that can be used to to eliminate ambiguous or misleading test items and to increase the quality of an assessment as a whole.
This article will provide an overview of the Item Analysis report Calculate Statistics feature.
Calculate Statistics is available for district-level Answer Key Only (AKO), Express, ExamView and Item Bank assessments. The assessment must contain a minimum of two items and the Administration Window must be closed.
The statistics that will be calculated are Mean, Standard Deviation, Cronbach Alpha, Standard Error of Measurement, P-value, and Point Biserial.
Admin and District Level Users are able to request that statistics be calculated.
1. Permission to Calculate Statistics
1. From the Top Menu Bar Grid icon, click the Assessments tile.
- Or, from the Launchpad, click the Assessments flip card to reveal the reverse side available options. Select Manage Assessments.
2. In the Roles tab of the Admin module, locate the district user Role Name that you would like to enable the Calculate Statistics for. Click the down arrow under the Functions column and to the right of Role Name and select Edit.
3. Click the System Admin tab.
4. In the Permissions table, select View and Update checkboxes for Statistics Data.
5. Select Save.
Note: In order to enable the Calculate Statistics for a user Role, the View Statistics permission, as well as the Data View > District Summary Level Data View permission must be enabled.
2. Request Statistics for a District Assessment
1. From the Top Menu Bar Grid icon, select the Assessments tile to open the Manage Assessments module.
2. Find the closed District Assessment for which the statistics will be calculated.
3. In the Functions column to the right of the assessment name, click on the down arrow, and select Calculate Statistics.
4. A message will appear confirming this action. Note all CR items must be scored first before calculating statistics. Click OK to continue.
5. From the Top Menu Bar Grid icon, select Reports to navigate to the Report Manager. Then click the Item Analysis Report.
6. Check the box next to Statistics to view them.
Statistics shown are: Mean, Standard Deviation, Cronbach Alpha, Standard Error of Measurement for the entire test, and P-value and Point Biserial for each item.
Statistics Descriptors
- Mean: Average score
- Standard Deviation: the amount of variation of scores, relative to the mean
- Cronbach Alpha: a measure of internal consistency; how closely related a set of items are as a group
- Standard Error of Measurement: a measure of the precision of the assessment
- P-Value: a measure of item difficulty; ranges between 0.0 and 1.0; the higher the value, the greater proportion of students answered correctly, thus an easier item.
- Point Biserial: a measure of item reliability; ranges between -1.0 and +1.0; correlates student scores on one item with scores on the test as a whole; the closer to 1.0, the more reliable an item is because it discriminates well among students who mastered test material and those who didn’t.