The Internal Consistency Reliability and Item Difficulty Analysis of the English School-based Assessment that Measure Listening and Reading Aspects

Abstract

English school-based assessments are conducted independently by high schools in which it means that the test items are constructed by the school, particularly the English teachers. The assessments come in form of oral and written testing. One type of the assessment is the test of listening and reading aspects which are conducted in written form. This study is intended to elaborate two extens to which teachers can accurately interpret the information provided by the test score and students' answer of the English school-based assessments that measure listening and reading aspects. In other words, inferences might be drawn based on the test scores. They are the internal consistency reliability and item difficulty analysis. This study involved 201 third year (12th grade) students of Sekolah Menengah Umum Negeri (Senior High School 5) Banjarmasin academic year 2011/2012. It is recommended that teachers should always analyze their teacher-made tests to be a part of self-reflection. This study might be beneficial to teachers of English because it tries to offer a simple way of utilizing the test scores and the students' answer for the sake of the test analysis by elaborating Microsoft Excel.