A psychometrically sound instrument to measure teacher educator’s assessment practice suitable for the Malaysian context needs to be developed. This study aimed to validate an Assessment Practice Inventory for Teacher Educators in Malaysia (MAPITE) to be used in the project ‘NRGS-developing and validating an assessment and accountability framework for preparing quality teachers for the future’ using Rasch Model. An Assessment Practice Inventory for Teacher Educators (MAPITE) consisting 70 items has been developed in the NRGS-assessment sub-project ‘developing and validating an assessment and accountability framework for preparing quality teachers’ 2014-2019. Analysis of construct validity by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and internal consistency on the data of pilot study showed that the instrument seem to be sound and can be used to measure assessment practice related to assessment literacy standards assessment principles and frequency of carrying out described items. Ho.....

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This study aimed at determining the quality of the English Paper 1 (EP1) items of UPSR trial examination for six graders in terms of its reliability, validity and items characteristics. It also sought to determine the difficulty levels of 40 multiple-choice items consisting five constructs of vocabulary, language and social expression, grammar, cloze-comprehension and reading comprehension. A number of 525 primary schools students were randomly selected from 3876 students in Kuala Selangor, Malaysia. Using the Rasch measurement model, the validity evidences were shown through the results of Principle Component Analysis (PCA), fit statistics and item distractor analysis. The results from PCA analysis showed the absence of second dimension in the test, which met the assumption of modern testing theory. Fit statistics analyses have identified seven misfit items that are beyond the acceptable range (0.7 - 1.3 logit). Item distractor analysis has identified five problematic items whereby th.....

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Item response theory (IRT) offers some advantages over classical test theory and has been widely used to analyze dichotomous types of data in educational testing. This study aims to explore which is the most appropriate model to be used in the analysis of dichotomous items of the Anatomy and Physiology course. The study involved 971 nursing students studying in the Ministry of Health Malaysia training colleges. Exploratory factor analysis was performed on the data of the final examination paper containing 40 multiple-choice items. Results of the analysis showed that the unidimensionality and local independence assumptions were met. Data calibration was performed using an IRT-based software, Xcalibre based on the negative twice the log-likelihood statistic (-2LL). Results showed that the 3PL model is the most appropriate model for analyzing the data of the study. This study concludes that the 3PL model should be given a priority in analyzing the dichotomously scored items that involve g.....

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The study sought to investigate the dropout trends and patterns among the secondary school students by district in Perak. The study employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods involving cohort flow analysis of student enrolment, interviews and document analysis. In the first part, student enrolment by grade level in 2000-2010 in all the nine districts in Perak from the database provided by the Ministry of Education was analyzed. In the second part, data were gathered through interviews from Batang Padang District that demonstrated highest dropout rate so as to further understand why secondary school students dropped out from schools, what are those students doing after leaving schools and explore their views on what could have been done to keep them in schools. Results showed that average of total loss between Form 1 and Form 5 in Perak State was 8.11 percent. The highest percentage of dropout was in Batang Padang (16.52%), followed by Manjung (11.9%), Hilir Perak (1.....

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This study seeks to identify several predictor variables of science achievement among the eighth graders (Form 2) in Malaysia. Using the Trends in International Math and Science Study 2003 (TIMSS) data for Malaysia, stepwise regression analyses were performed on the national data. Results indicate that (1) student’s valuing science (SVS) and home educational resources (HER) are two strong predictor variables of science achievement at the student-level. These two variables account for 17.9 percent of the variation of science achievement between students within schools; (2) at the school-level, the mean of home educational resources (MHER) and teacher’s emphasis on science experiment (EXPR) are two predictor variables of science achievement, and they account for 51 percent of the variation between school means science achievement; (3) the effects of HER on achievement become much stronger as an aggregate, resulting in MHER as the strongest predictor variables among the four predictor.....

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This study is drawn from a larger study on the effectiveness of the Cultural Arts Guidance Program (PBSB) in Malaysian schools. It is a joint programme between the Department of National Culture & Arts (JKKN) and the Ministry of Education Malaysia. The PBSB effectiveness study was conducted in 2013 to help JKKN improve the programme implementation and set forth the future direction of PBSB. The three most popular areas of cultural arts, namely dance, music and theatre were studied. Several assessment instruments were developed based on the objectives of PBSB and the modules used in the programme. This study focuses only on the development and re-validation of the basic knowledge test of music used in the PBSB effectiveness study. The present article discusses the background of PBSB, some important findings from the PBSB effectiveness study and the psychometric characteristics of the items in the test from the perspective of the Item Response Theory (IRT). The test of multiple-choice it.....

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This paper reports the development and validation of a test that measures the whole range of basic science process skills as stipulated in the Malaysian science curricula and that is suitable for Malaysian upper primary school students. In the instrument development phase, 58-item Basic Science Process Skills (BSPS) Test was generated according to a set of a priori indicators. These items were vetted by two reviewers consisting of experienced primary science teachers to ensure content validity and to establish inter-rater reliability (or, degree of agreement). The analysis of inter-rater agreement in categorisation of basic science process skills items yielded a Cohen’s Kappa value of 0.877, p = .000 < .001. The BSPS Test was then field tested with a group of 197 upper primary students (Grades/Years 4-6, or aged 10- 12) that represents top, average, and bottom sets. The dataset was subjected to item analyses, resulting in a quality 29-item BSPS Test. The BSPS Test has a KR-20 reliabi.....

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The objective of this research was to determine the validity of Students’ Mathematical Process Rubric (ProM3) using Many-Facet Rasch Model (MFRM). The data were gathered from 7 raters marking 188 scripts of Form 1 students from a number of boarding schools in the middle and northern zone of Malaysia. ProM3 Rubric was used to analyse students’ responses in problem solving and reflective writing tasks for 29 criteria, that is in five dimensions of the mathematical process, namely connection, representation, communication, reasoning and problem solving. MFRM was used to analyse the data to look into three facets; student ability, rater severity and item difficulty. The findings indicated that the accurate index measuring students’ ability facet was between -3.48 until 4.71 logit, raters’ severity facet between -0.59 until 0.74 logit, and items/criteria’s difficulty facet at -2.38 (problem identifying) until 1.45 (quantitative reasoning) logit. The high validity and reliability c.....

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