Glimpse into teaching and learning using rasch analyses of a teacher-made science achievement test

Abstract

This study examined the quality of a teacher-made achievement test using Rasch analyses and provided useful assessment feedback information for improving teaching and testing. The participants were 8,936 seventh-grade students (4,617 boys and 4,319 girls) from the Kaohsiung area in Taiwan. Data were collected through a teacher-made biology achievement test and analyzed using the Rasch model. The results indicated that the test clearly discriminated students' abilities. Some questions, however, were found to have unfair content for girls. Additionally, some mismatches were identified between teachers' expectations and students' assessments of question difficulty. This paper also provides assessment feedback diagrams, including a person-item map and diagnostic map, and a method of identifying ＂the zone of fundamental learning development＂ and ＂the zone of proximal learning development＂ is proposed to enable teachers to plan students' learning progression.