Data
Contents |
Viewing Response Data
This view of the data shows responses on the items in a single item set.
- Select the Students tab at the bottom of the main data view window.
- To select a particular item set, select View - Select Item Set from the main menu.
Item sets are hierarchical groupings of items in time-sequence order. In a simple example, you may have a single instrument with all of the items in one Item Set. In the SEPUP Demo example, each curricular “Activity” is represented as an Item Set containing one or more items. These Item Sets are then grouped together corresponding to instructional units, such as “1-12”, “13-20”, etc. (e.g., “1-12” refers to Activities 1 through 12). There are also Item Sets for the Pre-test and Post-test, and for Link tests between chapters.
Only one Item Set can be viewed at a time. If the requested Item Set contains other Item Sets rather than items, such as the SEPUP Item Set “1-12”, then no items will be displayed in the main ConstructMap window. You must open an Item Set that contains items (i.e., denoted with ? ), such as “ACT12”, to see items displayed in the main window.
- Note: You can change the term Item Set to something more meaningful in your assessment context by selecting Report Options and then entering new terms.
The respondents and their scores on the items within the selected Item Set will be dispalyed. Note in Figure 3 that the Item Set name is shown at the bottom of the screen and individual items for the Item Set are displayed as column headings across the top.
In addition to response data, demographic data is also displayed in this view (e.g., the "Class" column in Figure 3). Users can select demographic fields to view by using the View - Select Demographic Columns to Display menu option. Selecting this option brings up a dialog window such as the one disaplyed in Figure 4. Checked boxes indicate fields that will be displayed in the main data view window.
Users can also choose which cases to be included or excluded for analysis. Select the View - Select Students to Include to display a column of checkboxes that indicate whether individual cases have been included or excluded. You can also check or clear boxes to manually select cases to include or exclude. See Filtering Cases for more information.
Users also have the option of viewing raw response data or scored data. The default is to view the raw responses. Select the View - Show Recoded Values menu option ot see the score that ConstructMap uses in computing proficiency estimates. These are the values of the responses after the answer key has been applied.
Viewing and Editing Item Data
Select the Items tab at the bottom of the data view window. Details about the items are displayed, as shown in the figure.
The Id value is a numerical system identifier for the item, while the Name is the user-defined short name of the item. The Full Name and Item Set (referred to as Instrument in this setting) are also displayed. Next, the active/inactive status of the item, whether it is to be anchored or estimated in subsequent calibration runs, and any linking information is displayed. Then, the date the item became active, the maximum score on the item, and the item difficulty parameters are also shown. Note that the item parameters are displayed in delta(i) + tau(i,j) format (rather than in delta(i,j) format).
Items can be both viewed and edited in this view.
Active - click on a checkbox to select or unselect it. Inactive items are not included in estimation or reports.
Anchored - click on a checkbox to select or unselect it. Anchored items are held fixed during item estimation.
Item Linking
Linked - click on the cell to indicate which item(s) the current item (source) is to be linked to. A tree of item sets and items is displayed. Use the <Ctrl> key to select multiple items to link to. The source item contains the controlling parameter values, which will be copied to the linked items. In addition, linked items are automatically anchored. It is recommended that the source item be calibrated prior to setting links to other items. In the case of test-retest calibration, the linking must be done prior to calibration. ConstructMap assumes a test-retest situation when all items of both item sets are linked (i.e., the item sets are comprised of the same items).
- NOTE: The source and target items for a link relationship must have the same number of categories and be associated with the same variable.
See Also Item Parameter Topics
Viewing Answer Key Data
Select the Answer Key tab at the bottom of the data view window to see the response recoding instructions. As shown below, recoding rules for each item appear in columns, with the item name at the top of the column. The original values appear in the first column (not shown in the figure, but the column is entitled “Response”). In this example, there was no recoding. As with the item view, the answer key view is not an editing environment. For information about using answer keys, see Creating the Response Data File section.
New as of version 4.3.12: "." in an answer key represents a missing response, that is a valid input by the user. However, "N/A" in an answer key means an invalid entry. An invalid entry means a particular value can not be put as a valid response to an item for a student.
Viewing Item Set Data
To examine item set, or instrument-specific data, select the Item Set tab at the bottom of the data view window. The optional settings of proficiency expectations for each item set will be displayed. Note that each item set appears on a row and each variable appears in a column.
