THE RASCH METHOD OF ITEM ANALYSIS ADVANCES IN ITEM AND TEST DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The pUlpose of Ihis ar/ide is to recast the Rasch
method of ilem and lest development in both Iheoretical and
practical forms ro broaden insighls inro rhe modd's'applicabilfty in everyday work and research. The Rasch model tries to
describe what happens when an examinee wirh a certain ability
encounrers a quesrion wirh a cerrain difficulry level. Following
some assumptions, ir stales in a probabilistic manner the way
people and quesrions relare. The process conrrasts sharply
with rhe mosr widely used irem analysis rechniques, which
simply report roral scores on people and on quesrions and itemrotal score correlarion coefficienr as rhe means of describing
tesr response dara. The Rasch merhod uses two pieces of
informarion: irem and person paramelers. Wilh the help of the
compurer rhese parameters are calibraled and indexed. From
rhis a scale free from a parricular populalion of sludents will
be creared which will enable lhe user 10 inrefprer level of
peiformance direclly Wilh respect 10 Ihe curriclilum.