An Analysis of English Summative Test for 6th Grade Students in Three Public Elementary Schools in Udanawu District, Blitar Regency

ABSTRACT Husna, Hanik Huzaimatul. 2012. An Analysis of English Summative Test for 6th Grade Students in Three Public Elementary Schools in Udanawu District, Blitar Regency. Thesis, Undergraduate Program in English Education, English Department, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Advisor: Drs. Fachrurrazy, M.A, Ph.D Keywords: test construction, English teachers, summative test, item analysis This study is intended to find out the quality of the English summative test for 6th grade Students in three public elementary schools in Udanawu District, Blitar Regency in terms of the test construction, content validity, level of difficulty, level of discrimination, and the effectiveness of distracters. This research design is descriptive evaluative since this study is designed to evaluate and describe the quality of English summative test for 6th grade students in three public elementary schools in Udanawu District, Blitar Regency. The data that are used in this research are from the school documents. They are English Summative Test for 6th Grade Students in odd semester of 2011/2012 academic year and students’ answer sheets. The data were analyzed using qualitative method by using checklist for test construction analysis and quantitative method for item analysis using software Anates version 4. The findings of the study are as follows. First, the teachers generally know the principles to construct test format. The construction of wh-question, multiple-choice, and completion are excellent because the test construction fulfill principles of test construction, but based on the analysis the researcher finds some mistakes that should be revised by teachers. Second, based on analysis of content validity, the materials being tested do not cover all the basic competences in the School-Based Curriculum. Third, generally, the level of difficulty of each item format is fair. Fourth, the level of discrimination for all the item formats is very good. The last finding is that the of distracters in the multiple-choice format is mostly effective. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the quality of English Summative Test for 6th Grade Students in odd semester of 2011/2012 academic year is considered very good. Some suggestions are offered to the test constructors are the test should be constructed based on the principles of the test construction, the content validity of the material being tested should be relevant with the curriculum, the test items should not be very difficult and very easy for students, and the distracters should be effective to attract students to choose the distracters equally. Teachers should really understand and apply the concept in constructing test items, try out the test in a small group and analyze the test they have made. Nowadays, analyzing test items is easy because there are some software that can be used for analyzing, such as Software Anates, ITEMAN, Microsoft Excel, SPSS (Statistical Program for Social Science). For further researchers, it is suggested to analyze and evaluate larger scope of the study, for example analyzing construct validity of scoring rubric.