COMPARING INCORRECT ANSWER PERCENTAGE DISPERSIONS IN STATEWIDE READING COMPREHENSION SCORES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL LEADERS

This Differential Distractor Functioning (DDF) study involved 855,023 regular education students in Grades 3, 6, and 11 in Texas. Percentage dispersion anomalies were identified in the 2009 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills Item Analysis Reports provided by the Texas Education Agency. Questions addressed in this investigation were: How many students answered incorrectly on certain test items? What items had the highest frequency of a single wrong answer? Which test objectives had balanced/even dispersions? Were these dispersions similar in other grade levels? Data analyses yielded an increase in incorrect answer anomalies by 8% from Grade 3 to Grade 11. Furthermore, a 100% incorrect answer anomaly was revealed for Objective 2 – Applying Literary Elements for Grade 6 students. From these results, educational leaders need to examine more closely specific objectives and test items so that they can determine underlying reasons for students not answering these objectives and test items correctly.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Professional Leadership

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Linden, Nancy Ellen 1965-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Warner, Allen R.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Busch, Steven D.
• MacNeil, Angus J.
• Hutchison, Laveria F.

• Assessments
• Reading comprehension
• Testing
• Standardized testing
• Incorrect answer options

Statement dc:rights

• The author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10657/1032

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/1032