Item Analysis and Standardization

Estimating the capacity of ceramic vessels or containers made of other materials (metal, stone, glass, etc.) is of great utility for archaeology. In particular, it can improve our understanding of production, distribution and consumption in prehistoric societies, and, as a result, of their economic organisation. There are three methods to calculate the capacity of vessels: (1) direct measurements; (2) dividing manually the profile drawings of vessels into geometric figures whose volumes are calculated separately by means of mathematical formulae; and (3) computer-assisted calculations based on three-dimensional geometrical models of vessels. The aim of this paper is to assess the degree of accuracy and precision of measurements and the efficiency of the task measured by the time of execution of these methods. A test sample of 40 fully preserved pottery vessels of different periods and fabrics has been considered. Our results suggest that three-dimensional models generated from vector illustrations with AutoCAD® software offer the best solution to estimate the capacity of large samples of archaeological vessels.

The purpose of this study was to calculate the prevalence and nature of item construction flaws within one
large medical school and to identify several innovative approaches that may serve as potential remedies
for these problems. Results indicated that approximately one in five items contained a construction flaw,
with the overwhelming majority of flaws involving poor quality distractors. A series of innovative
recommendations are presented, including modern psychometric analytical techniques to more thoroughly
inspect data, item manipulation techniques, and the use of innovative item types that may alleviate the
need for distractors altogether.

For free access to the article, please see: http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/d06d9379#/d06d9379/61.

La Educación para la Ciudadanía, (EpC), fue incorporada en el 2007 al currículo oficial en España como materia autónoma que debía ser cursada por todos los alumnos de enseñanza Primaria y Secundaria. Más adelante, en 2015, se incorporó la asignatura, al currículo autonómico en Canarias, de Educación Emocional y para la Creatividad, (EMOCREA), que debería ser cursada, en este caso, por los alumnos de tercero y quinto de Primaria. Los cambios curriculares supusieron implicaron variaciones de gran alcance social y educativo lo que convirtió al profesorado en pieza básica del proceso, máxime, si se tenía en cuenta dos indicadores cardinales que afectaban al proceso de enseñanza de dichas asignaturas: el primero, carecer de preparación en su formación inicial y segundo, la escasez de planes de formación continua relacionados con la educación en valores, la ciudadanía y la educación emocional. Este artículo tuvo como principal objetivo evaluar la calidad técnica de los ítems, la fiabilidad, la validez de constructo factorial y la validez predictiva del instrumento de medida propuesto para un posterior estudio sobre la formación, cualificación y expectativas del profesorado hacia la educación emocional  y  educación para la ciudadanía. El instrumento fue aplicado a una muestra de 180 profesores de los citados niveles de enseñanza. Después de los análisis realizados, el cuestionario resultó sustantivamente válido para el propósito que fue construido.



Education for Citizenship, (EpC), was incorporated in 2007 into the official curriculum in Spain as an autonomous subject to be taken by all primary and secondary school students. Later, in 2015, the subject was added to the Canary Island curriculum in the subject “Emotional Education and for Creativity, (EMOCREA)”, which should be taken by students from third to fifth grade of Primary. Of course, both curricular changes represented a variation with a great social and educational reach that made the teaching staff a basic part of the process, especially if two cardinal indicators were taken into account that affected the teaching process of these subjects: the first, lack of preparation in their initial training, and second, the shortage of continuing education plans related to values ​​education, citizenship and emotional education. In this sense, it was tried to know what teachers think, carrying out this study, based on a questionnaire made for this purpose, focused on the training, qualification and expectations of primary and secondary teachers of Tenerife towards these new curricular conjunctures. This article had as main objective to evaluate the technical quality of the items, reliability, factorial construct validity and predictive validity of the proposed measurement instrument. In addition, a dimension analysis was performed in terms of difficulty, discrimination and interest for research. The instrument was applied to a sample of 180 teachers of the above mentioned levels of education. After the analyzes made, the questionnaire was shown to be substantively valid for the purpose with which it was constructed.

Gafoor and Shilna
Organic chemistry is conceptual and abstract in nature for a novice learner. Concept-maps have been used as a tool to enhance the learning experiences in organic chemistry. Present study validates the concept-map as a tool for assessing conceptual understanding in organic chemistry. Investigators used counter balanced design to eliminate the effect of sequence of administration of three types of tests that included true or false and multiple-choice tests in addition to the concept-mapping tool. Parallel items related to six areas namely allotropes of carbon, valency of carbon, carbon compounds, classification of hydrocarbons, types of bonding in hydro carbons, chemical formula of hydro carbons in 9th standard organic chemistry unit were constructed.  The sample consisted of 117 tenth standard students from a rural government school. Difficulty index shows that chemical formula of hydrocarbons is the most difficult area among the six areas studied. Overall, power to discriminate individual differences in learning is high for concept-map test, compared to other two formats of tests. The paper also discusses the feedback obtained from the participants regarding their experience with the three types of evaluation. Students reported better motivation with the concept-mapping tool.

La plupart des applications d’apprentissage à distance possèdent une interface usager statique. Cette interface ne s’adapte généralement pas aux exigences, au réalisme ou aux ressources multimédia nécessaires à la présentation de contenu de cours ou de questions d’examen. Dans le cas qui
nous intéresse, l’adaptation de l’interface en fonction du contenu multimédia des questions d’examen pourrait rendre l’évaluation plus efficace par l’ajout de réalisme. Une question se pose alors : « Comment implanter l’évaluation à
distance dans les programmes d’enseignement? ». Ce projet veut apporter une solution à cette problématique par l’inclusion de l’évaluation adaptative dans les tâches d’évaluation à l’aide de normes informatiques. L’un des objectifs de ce projet sera l’informatisation des tâches d’évaluation afin que
l’interface usager s’adapte au type de question présentée. L’évaluation sera ainsi plus efficace par l’ajout de contenu multimédia tel que des films, images, bandes
sonores et animations graphiques ajoutant du réalisme aux questions.