Exam Grading Definitions
Terms used in the SSRL Exam Grading Process
If a term or explanation is not provided below, please Contact Us.
Answer Key: The answers for the exam must be filled out on a bubble sheet. In the name field, it can be filled out as KKEY (space) Your Last Name or KEY (space) Your Last Name. Then fill in the answers corresponding to the item.
Asterisk *: Indicates a multiple response in one of the information fields or on a question.
Blank: If a bubble on a form is not filled in or it is incorrectly filled in.
Correct Answer: The answer given on the answer key.
Correct Group Responses: A percentage breakdown by each question on how the students responded. Grouping is by Total (% who answered correctly), Upper 27% (% who answered correctly that scored in the upper 27% on the exam), Lower 27 % (% who answered correctly that scored in the lower 27% on the exam).
Filter: Header information from the Exam Grading Request.
Form: This is used for those instructors who use the MAP. The form code a student fills in on the exam will appear at the end of the student field in the reports. The form code must be filled out for a MAP to work.
Frequency: Displays how often a value occurs.
Histogram: A chart that plots the distribution of the raw scores.
Legend: A short description to guide the instructor.
MAP: This is used for those instructors who have multiple answer keys for the same exam (ie., version A and version B, etc.). We can grade these types of exams if the questions are scrambled, but not the responses. Instructors will fill out an answer key for form A and a separate answer key for any additional versions (B, C, etc.). See the MAP document for further explanation.
Maximum Score: Is the highest score on the exam.
Mean: The average of the scores.
Median: The score that has as many scores above as below. It reports the median raw score and the median percent score.
Minimum Score: Is the lowest score on the exam.
Missing: The number of responses that are either blank, have multiple markings for one question, or have a poorly erased response. This data also helps us determine if there is a high number of missing responses, which gives us a reason to check and see if there is an error with the exam. us to see if there may be problems with the exam if there are a high number of missing responses. For example: it may be that a student only answered a couple of questions and left the rest blank, or the answer key was filled out for 40 responses, but the students only filled out 30.
Non Distractor: These are the responses to the questions that were not selected by any students.
Number Correct: The number of questions the student answered correctly.
Number Incorrect: The number of questions the student answered incorrectly.
Number of Unanswered or Other Incorrect Response: Displays what questions the student left blank.
Percent: The percentage of questions the student answered correctly or the percentage of a frequency value.
Percent Score: This is the standard grading scale of 90, 80, 70, etc.
Percentile: The percentage of all the scores for the exam that are at or below that student’s score. For example, if a student has a percentile of 55, then there are 55% of the students that are at that same score or below.
Point Biserial Coefficients (PBSR): This is a measurement of the discrimination of an item. It indicates the relationship between a response for a given item and the overall test score of the respondent. This indicates that the students who performed well on the exam also selected the correct response, so this is a good discriminator between high-scoring and low-scoring students.
PPRM: If an instructor would like to have any questions worth more than 1 point, then he or she will need to fill out a bubble sheet representing the point value needed for each question. In the name field, write PPRM and fill in the bubbles. On the questions worth additional points, fill in the desired amount. For example, if an instructor wants a 25-question exam to be worth 50 points, then the instructor should fill in B, or the 2, bubble for each question. If the instructor wants a half point value, write .5 beside the question number. The PPRM must be accompanied with the answer key.
Question: The question number.
Range of Scores: This will show the difference between the maximum score and the minimum score. The range shows how much the scores vary.
Raw Score Scale: A scale determined by the number of points on an exam.
Reliabilty Coeffiecient (KR20): Measures exam reliability and is an overall measure of internal consistency. A higher value for the exam indicates a strong relationship between items on the test.
Response Frequencies: Displays the percentage a particular answer choice was chosen by the students for a particular question.
Standard Deviation: A measure of how spread out the distribution of scores is from the mean.
Total: Total points a student received along with the total possible points on the exam.
Total Possible Points: The number of points the exam is worth.
Total Students: Represents the total number of exams graded.
WT (Weight): The amount each question is worth.
Z-score: This shows where the students score fell relative to the mean when measured in standard deviation units.
WSUID: A student’s WSUID can be located in the student field on a report if the student filled in the appropriate bubble on the exam.