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ERIC Number: ED342727
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1990
Pages: 21
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
How Psychometric Analysis Can Help Teachers Realize a Curriculum.
Boone, William J.
Classroom teachers use intuitions, experiences, syllabi, and course guides to help implement a curriculum. Psychometric techniques can also help guide and shape curricula. Some psychometric techniques allow tests to reveal the actual curriculum mastered by students in an objective and sample-free manner and to indicate a probable learning sequence of topics. The graphical presentation of such data is called a "curriculum map." The power of the maps is such that by displaying students' mastery of material and the difficulty of specific topics, teachers may be better guided in an optimal presentation order of material to students. Curriculum maps are built by calculating item difficulties and student abilities. The calculations are important because the nonlinearity of raw test scores are corrected to make the data from students and items meaningful. The paper introduces a number of psychometric curriculum maps: (1) real item maps; (2) student and item maps; and (3) fit maps of students and items. All of the maps can be constructed easily with modern psychometric techniques. They are a logical, necessary step in evaluating curriculum, and they provide the opportunity for educators to improve and study topic sequencing. (SM)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A