Rater plays an important role in awarding fair judgment to students. However, the difficulty to consider fairness to the student applies, especially for the assessment of competency in design electronic circuit. Therefore, the use of an analytic scoring rubric as a guide can reduce the error due to the nature of rubrics. This present research employs Many Facet Rasch Measurement (MFRM) to explore rater error focusing on central tendency effect. Participants comprised of a sample of nine experienced teachers who were employed to assess 68 students in their competency of Electronic Circuit Design process in Vocational College in Malaysia. Students were observed using four-point analytic rating scale. The data were collected and analyzed using FACET, a MFRM computer software program. The results were presented in two ways: at the group level and at the individual level. At the group level, information from the scale category statistics indicated central tendency effect; however, none of the separation statistics indicated such an effect. At the individual level, there are two raters that exhibit centrality Index Terms-Central tendency, many facet Rasch measurement (MFRM)
Critical thinking and problem solving skills (CTPS) are the skills that must be mastered by students to ensure competitiveness in the future workforce market. Hence, graduates should equip themselves with the skills required by the future workforce to ensure that they are marketable. However, many studies have shown that graduates are still weak in the skills needed by the industry as a result of fast technology development. There are seven elements for critical thinking and problem solving that must and should be mastered by the graduates, and the undergraduate students of vocational education at University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) are not exempted. Consequently, a study was conducted to identify the level of critical thinking and problem solving skills achievement among vocational education undergraduates through a survey method. The instrument used in this study was an achievement test that was developed according to the criteria of CTPS, which is emphasized by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education. Five experts validated the achievement test and followed by the reliability test that involved about 30 respondents. Kuder Richardson 20 and Cohen Kappa were applied to ensure the reliability value of the achievement test. A total number of 66 vocational education undergraduates were involved in this study. Those respondents will be involved in an intervention program that aims to enhance their CTPS mastery level. Sum, mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the gathered data. The findings showed that the majority of vocational education undergraduates tend to have low and moderate level for all the seven elements in critical thinking and problem solving. In conclusion, intervention programmes or the existing learning approach need to be conducted in order to improve the undergraduate critical thinking and problem solving skills to prepare themselves for the demand of the future job market.
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