An analysis of Intermediate Physics Exam, May 1997

Abstract

This study evaluates the results of the Matriculation Certificate Examination of Physics at Intermediate Level, held in May 1997, in order to gauge its impact across several dimensions. The measures include characteristics of the examination paper, students' achievement by gender, by type of school and by their 'A' Level options. Further insight on the impact of Intermediate Physics is obtained via questionnaires given to teachers teaching the subject. The study also contains an item-error analysis. Features characterising the examination paper, namely its reliability, validity, facility level of the questions and the question discriminating power, are considered. The internal consistency of the exam paper, using Cronbach's alpha, was estimated to be moderately high. There was no one difficult exam question and all questions discriminated effectively between high and low achievers. The median raw score of 70.4 indicated that most students performed highly in the exam. No significant sex differences existed when considering the overall exam marks. Comparing the global achievement across schools, students from post-secondary private schools outperformed all other candidates. Science students obtained higher grades in Intermediate Physics than the non-sciences. Most teachers feel that the syllabus needs to be revised so as to specify more clearly the depth and breadth of each topic. Three whole questions having, comparably, low facility indexes, were studied in order to identify the students' most common mistakes. The conclusion of the study concerns possible improvements in the syllabus and the examination paper.