Test Item File

TEST ITEM FILE

Anastasia Bake

St. Clair College

Alice Barron

St. Clair College

Jason Morris

St. Clair College

PSYCHOLOGY

Canadian Edition

Saundra K. Ciccarelli

Gulf Coast Community College

Tom Harrigan

Red River College of Applied Arts, Science and Technology

V. Heather Fritzley

Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada, a division of Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario. Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. This work is protected by Canadian copyright laws and is provided solely for the use of instructors in teaching their courses and assessing student learning. Dissemination or sale of any part of this work (including on the Internet) will destroy the integrity of the work and is not permitted. The copyright holder grants permission to instructors who have adopted Psychology, Canadian Edition, by Ciccarelli/Harrigan/Fritzley, to post this material online only if the use of the website is restricted by access codes to students in the instructor’s class that is using the textbook and provided the reproduced material bears this copyright notice.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 2

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 3

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 4

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 5

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 6

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 7

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 8

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 9

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 10

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 11

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 12

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 13

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 14

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

Chapter 15

Test Item File

Questions from the Textbook

Extra Bank of Questions

Quick Quiz 1

Quick Quiz 2

About the Test Banks

The Main Test Bank

Each item in the main test bank includes a rationale for the correct answer as well as an explanation of why the next-likely choice is incorrect. Items are followed by the correct answer; the page number of the material in the textbook from which the question was drawn; whether the question is factual, conceptual, or applied; the Learning Objective from the textbook the question addresses; and the difficulty level (1=easy, 2=moderate, 3=difficult). Many of the questions also include class-testing statistics, as described below.

Factual questions derive mainly from the text’s own wording. They include research findings, statistics, names of researchers, dates, key distinctions between closely related topics, and the like. Conceptual questions involve definitions of key terms and concepts presented in the text, as well as conceptual understanding of some topics. Applied questions generally appear in “minicase” form. A brief illustration or example is presented in the item, and student must choose which of four alternatives is best illustrated by this example. Some of these questions are quite demanding.

Quick Quizzes

Each chapter of the main test bank includes two Quick Quizzes of 10 questions each, drawn from the body of the test bank. In identifying questions by the Learning Objective from the textbook as well as question type (multiple choice, true/false, short answer, essay) and skill (factual, conceptual, applied).

Extra Bank of Questions

As well as providing additional test items, the “Extra Bank of Questions” is intended to address a second, and in many cases more serious, problem -- the varying quality of test item files. While some test item files are very good and ask questions that discriminate between good and poor students, many others do not. As an instructor, it is very difficult to know which of these individual items are good discriminators. Typically, instructors of introductory psychology adopt a text and hope to receive a good test item file in the package.

At my university, summary statistics accompany all computer-scored examinations. I have always thought it was unfortunate to receive the most critical data, these statistics, after the examination. In order to make the best examination, these statistics are needed before you develop an exam. With Psychology, Canadian Edition this problem has largely been eliminated with a class-tested Extra Bank of Questions in which every question includes class-testing statistics. Many questions in the main test bank include class-testing statistics as well.

The student population for the class-tested Test Item File consisted of 32 introductory psychology courses. The class sizes ranged from 50 to 250 students. The classes represented day, night, and summer sections at Montana State University. Montana State University is a medium size (12,000 students) land grant university in the northern Rocky Mountains. Introductory Psychology is one option of the university core requirements at Montana State University. The student population of the introductory classes represents all colleges in the university. Over 75 percent of the students in each class were freshmen.

Statistics

Items from the test item pool were class-tested and the following summary statistics are presented: correct answer to the item, percent correct for the item, percent correct for each alternative in the item and the overall point biserial r for each item.

Interpreting the Point Biserial r Statistic

The point biserial r statistic furnished with each item gives an evaluation of the item in relation to the overall test. Basically, if the students with the highest scores for the total examination get the specific item correct, while the students with the lowest total examination scores miss the item, the point biserial correlation will be a high positive. On the other hand, if the students that score the lowest for the total examination get the specific item correct and the individuals who score highest on the total examination miss the item, then the point biserial correlation will be a negative correlation. The higher the positive correlation for the item, the better the item. I have adopted a cut-off point for inclusion into the test item pool of correlations of r = .20 or higher. The only exceptions to this cut-off rule are items with a very high percent on the correct choice, for example, 99 or 100 percent. Items in the range of r = .20 - .30 are good items; in the range of r =.30 - .40 are very good; r = .40 - .50 are excellent and above r = .50 superior. The point biserial correlation values used for inclusion in the test item pool may seem low, but this is due, in part, to the restricted range of the point biserial correlation. With this restricted range, you would expect items with a higher percent correct to have a lower correlation. Some items with low r values can still be of use in your examination if the item has a low value due to a high percent correct for the item. You may want some items that are relatively easy in your examination. For a further discussion of the point biserial correlation, see: Lehmn (1991), Tabachnick and Fidell (1989), Glass and Hopkins (1984), Rosenthal and Rosnow (1984), or Guilford and Fruchter (1973).

The point biserial r statistic presented with each item is specific to my examination, but should give a good general measure of the usefulness of each item. These point biserial r values are not absolute, but rather are indicators of the usefulness of individual items. Additionally, the statistics on individual distractors will allow you to modify each item and/or distractor to meet your specific goals.

It is hoped that this multifaceted Test Item File for Psychology, Canadian Edition will both increase the longevity and usefulness of your test item pool while improving the quality of your examinations, and that you will find this interesting approach to testing helpful.