Adhering to the rules governing the writing of multiple-choice test items will ensure quality and validity. However, realizing this ideal could be challenging for non-native English language teachers and students. This is especially so for non-native English language teachers because developing test items in a language that neither they nor their students use as their mother tongue raises a multitude of issues related to quality and validity. A descriptive study on this problem was conducted at a Technical University in Ghana which focused on item writing flaws in a communication skills test. The use of multiple-choice test in Ghanaian universities has increased over the last decade due to increasing student intake. A 20-item multiple-choice test in communication skills was administered to 110 students. The test items were analyzed using a framework informed by standard item writing principles based on the revised taxonomy of multiple-choice item-writing guides by Haladyna, Downing and Rodriguez (2002). The facility and discrimination index (DI) was calculated for all the items. In total, 60% of the items were flawed based on standard items writing principles. The most violated guideline was wording stems negatively. Pearson correlation analysis indicated a weak relationship between the difficulty and discrimination indices. Using the discrimination indices of the flawed items showed that 84.6 % of them had discrimination indices below the optimal level of 0.40 and above. The lowest DI was recorded by an item with which was worded negatively. The mean facility of the test was 45%. It was observed that the flawed items were more difficult than the non-flawed items. The study suggested that test items must be properly reviewed before they are used to assess students’ knowledge.
African Writers gave little importance to the role of women in their literary works. The likes of Chinua Achebe and Ayi kwei Armah gave prominence to women characters. This is seen in Ayi Kwei Armah's text Fragments. This article therefore examines the important role given by the author of this novel to the woman character, Naana. A critical content analysis has been engaged in to ascertain her roles in the narrative and thematic developments of the story. That is, it studies how Naana is used as a tool to bring about the success of the novel. A study of this nature has to do with gender. Thus, the underlying theories of this paper are Marxist feminist criticism and feminist literary criticism.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.