Arab Educational Information Network

This study aimed at investigating the impact of difficult item’s location in multiple-choice test on its psychometric properties and student’s performance. To achieve the aim of the study a multiple- choice achievement test was constructed to measure students' competencies in computer. The test consisted of (50) items and four forms .The Four forms differ only in the location of the difficult items, where the location of these difficult items were in the first ten items for the first form, middle ten items for the second form, last ten items for the third form and randomly distributed for the last one. The population of the study consisted of all male and female first secondary class students, numbered (8332) students distributed on (61) schools in the public schools of Irbid district during the scholastic year 2012/2013. The sample of the study consisted of (519) male and female students distributed on six schools available selected, and the test forms were randomly distributed to the study sample. The results of the study revealed that there were statistical significant difference at the level (α=0.05) between difficulty coefficient means between the first and fourth forms, and there were no statistical significant differences at the level (α=0.05) between other forms. The results also showed that there were statistical significant difference at the level (α=0.05) between discrimination coefficient means between the first and fourth forms, and there were no statistical significant differences between other forms. The study revealed that the highest Cronbach α coefficient was the fourth form and the lowest Cronbach coefficient was the first form. The results also showed that there were statistical significant differences at level (α=0.05) between criterion related to validity coefficients of the first and fourth forms, and there were no statistical significant of other forms. Finally, the results revealed that there were statistical significant differences at the level (α=0.05) between the means of the student’s performance in computer achievement test between the first and fourth forms, and there were no statistical significant differences bet. (Published Abstract)