The Effect of Changing the Position of the Strong Distractor on Some Psychological Attribute of Multiple Choice Questions in Physics

Abstract

The study aimed at identifying the effect of changing the position of the strong distracter on students’ achievements and some psychological attribute (difficulty index and discrimination index) of the test item. To achieve the above aim, a multiple-choice test in physics consisted of (30) items was constructed. Two versions of the test were designed and they were identical except of the position of the strong distracter. The test was validated through a panel of judges and the reliability was conducted by Kuder- Richardson 20 method giving the value of (0.79). The sample of the study consisted of (197) male and female first secondary school students chosen randomly from three secondary schools in Al-Seeb sector in the Governor of Muscat - Sultanate of Oman. The results showed that there were statically significant differences in the mean scores of the students’ achievement in two test versions. Furthermore, there was a significant difference in the mean scores of the difficulty index and discrimination index of the test items between the two versions. A number of recommendations and suggestions were proposed in the light of the above results.