EXAMINING DISTRACTORS AND EFFECTIVENESS Distractors are the multiple choice response options that are not the correct answer. They are plausible but incorrect options that are often developed based upon students’ common misconceptions or miscalculations. Item analysis software typically indicates the percentage of students who selected each option, distractors and key. educ 11

1. EXAMINING DISTRACTORS AND
EFFECTIVENESS
Distractors are the multiple choice response
options that are not the correct answer. They
are plausible but incorrect options that are
often developed based upon students’
common misconceptions or miscalculations.
Item analysis software typically indicates the
percentage of students who selected each
option, distractors and key.

2. Distractor analysis is an extension of item analysis, using
techniques that are similar to item difficulty and item
discrimination. In distractor analysis, however, we are no
longer interested in how test takers select the correct
answer, but how the distracters were able to function
effectively by drawing the test takers away from the
correct answer. The number of times each distractor is
selected is noted in order to determine the effectiveness
of the distractor. We would expect that the distractor is
selected by enough candidates for it to be a viable
distractor.

3. Distractor analysis can be a useful tool in evaluating
the effectiveness of our distractors. It is important
for us to be mindful of the distractors that we use in
a multiple choice format test as when distractors are
not effective, they are virtually useless. As a result,
there is a greater possibility that students will be able
to select the correct answer by guessing as the
options have been reduced.

4. DEVELOPING AN ITEM DATA FILE
Item analysis techniques are among the most valuable tools
classroom teachers use in improving the quality of their
classroom tests.
As pointed out by Payne(1992), item analysis is conducted for
the following purposes:
 To select best available items for the final form of the test;
 To identify structural or content defects in the terms;
 To detect learning difficulties of the class as a whole; and
 To identify the areas of weaknesses of students in need of
remediation.
 There are three main elements in an item analysis.

5. These elements are as follows: examination of the
difficulty level of the items, determination of the
discriminating power of each item, and examination of
the effectiveness of distracters in a multiple choice or
matching items.
Index of difficulty- the difficulty level of an item
By index of difficulty is meant the percentage of
students answering correctly each item in the test.
Index of discrimination- refers to the percentage of
high-scoring individuals responding correctly versus the
number of low- scoring individuals responding correctly
to an item.

6. DISCRIMINATION INDEX
The power of the item to discriminate the students between those
who scored high and those who scored low in the overall test.
Types Of Discrimination Index
• POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION
Happens when more students in the upper group got the item correctly
than those students in the lower group.
• NEGATIVE DISCRIMINATION
Occurs when more students in the lower group got the item correctly
than those students in the upper group.
• ZERO DISCRIMINITION
Happens when the number of students in the upper group and lower
group who answer the test correctly are equal.

7. .

8. LIMITATIONS OF ITEM ANALYSIS
Item Analysis is a process of examining the student’s
response to individual item in the test. It consists of
different procedures for assessing the quality of the
test items of the students
There are two types of item analysis: - Quantitative
Item Analysis - Qualitative Item Analysis
Difficulty Index refers to the proportion of the
number of students in the upper and lower groups
who answered an item correctly.

9. Guessing item
Students from the upper group have equal spread of choices
among the given alternatives. The students from the upper
group guess their answers because of the following reasons:
• The content of the test is not discussed in the class or in the
test.
• The item is very difficult.
• The question is trivial.
• Ambiguous item
Ambiguous item This happens when more students from the
upper group choose equally an incorrect option and the keyed
answer.

10. Analysis of Response Options
Another way to evaluate the performance of the entire
test item is through the analysis of the response options.
It is very important to examine the performance of each
option in a multiple-choice item.
Distracter- term used for the incorrect options in the
multiple-choice type of test while the correct answer
represents the key.

11. Factors why students failed to get the correct answer in the
given question: It is not taught in the class properly.
• It is ambiguous.
• The correct answer is not in the given in the options.
• It has more than one correct answer.
Factors why students failed to get the correct answer in the
given question:
• It contains grammatical clues to mislead the students.
• The student is not aware of the content.
• The students were confused by the logic of the question because
it has double negatives.
• The student failed to study the lesson.
Miskeyed Item The test item is a potential miskey if there are
more students from the upper group who choose the incorrect
options than the key.