DEVELOPMENT AND VALDATION OF WRITING COMPETENCY TEST OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE (WCTEL)

Abstract

The most commonly used tool for assessment of student’s knowledge is the essay type test and its
quality depends upon its validity. The purpose of this paper is to develop and administer an achievement test to
evaluate secondary school students’ writing competency. It was necessary to check the validity of the test to ensure
accuracy of assessment. For this purpose, item analysis of essay type questions was done through calculating Facility
value, FV and discrimination index, DI of questions given in Pilot testing, in which 150 students from two schools of
district Gujrat, were selected; two parallel version questionnaires were developed due to length of test, as there was
total fourteen questions so each version consisted of seven items. The importance of item analysis is highlighted
from the fact that almost fifty percent of questions were rejected after item analysis. The result of study also provides
a way to initiate a change in designing a fair assessment test for students. Items with average difficulty and high
discrimination should be included in examinations to improve assessment standard.