The analysis of students’ error and difficulty level of mathematics essay test

Abstract

Test is a way to know a students’ learning achievement. The level of test difficulty plays a key role in determining the students’ understanding of the learning material gained from the class. This study aimed at comparing the difficulty level of Mathematics essay test scoring from the rubrics test/a guide of different scores. This study analyzed 22 Mathematics essay test items at the Junior Secondary School (JSS). Design treatments by subjects uses one group experiment which means that there is only one group of students serving as the control and experiment group. A group of 452 third year students of JSS was given an essay test using different scoring or rubrics. Two-stage stratified random sampling was used to get the study sample. Scoring used three rubrics model 1 (0,1), model 2 (0,1,2), and model 3 (key words). The research revealed that the difficulty average of essay test scoring from the three rubrics/a scoring guide of model 3 is relatively similar. There is no significant difference between the level of essay test difficulty scored by rubrics/a scoring guide of models 1, 2 and 3. The most error of the students is to understand the items test, to replace the essay test into Mathematics model, and an error in operation of the variable.

Keywords: Mathematics, essay test, difficulty level rubrick, a scoring guide, junior secondary school