You are part of an educational unit of four educators. The item analysis of the recent examination is being reviewed. During this process, one test question in particular upsets you. From the
item analysis, you can see that the question has a discrimination index of .15 and several of the upper-level learners selected the same incorrect distractor. You believe that the
distractor is worded poorly and is confusing to these students. You want to remove the
item and give the students who missed it credit for the correct answer. You become upset
when the majority of the educators vote to leave the test question within the examination.
In fact, you become so upset that you raise your voice and the chair of the group calls for
a 15-minute break for everyone “to calm down.” Later that night, while self-reflecting, you
suddenly recall that as a student, you were upset over a test question that you thought
was confusing and “tricky.” However, the faculty member would not change your score,
resulting in you failing the exam. You realize that this experience has impacted your work
as an educator in reviewing test questions. Tomorrow, you must work with the same
group of individuals on a task force. How would you approach tomorrow’s meeting?
Would you bring up your memory to the members of the task force? Would you decide to
discuss it in a few days over lunch? What actions would you use so that this previous
event does not impact your current work? How would you be fair to the learners who
answered correctly as well as to those who answered incorrectly?