CONSTRUCTION OF FOUR-TIER DIAGNOSTIC TEST TO INVESTIGATE MISCONCEPTIONS IN POLYNOMIALS AMONG EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS
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Abstract
This study aimed to 1) construct a four-tier diagnostic test in Polynomials among eighth-grade students 2) examine the quality of the four-tier multiple-choice diagnostic test, and 3) interpret the diagnostic results of misconceptions in Polynomials among eighth-grade students. The sample consisted of 411 Grade 8 students in the 2025 academic year from schools under the Sukhothai Secondary Educational Service Area Office. The participants were selected using multi-stage random sampling. The research instrument was a four-tier multiple-choice diagnostic test comprising four sequential tiers: the answer tier, the confidence in the answer tier, the reasoning tier, and the confidence in the reasoning tier. The results revealed that the constructed diagnostic test covered four key conceptual areas and consisted of 32 items. The quality analysis indicated that the Index of Item–Objective Congruence ranged from 0.60 to 1.00. The difficulty indices ranged from 0.41 to 0.78 for the answer tier, and from 0.33 to 0.78 for the reasoning tier. The discrimination indices ranged from 0.21 to 0.53 for the answer tier, and from 0.20 to 0.66 for the reasoning tier. The reliability coefficients, calculated using the Kuder–Richardson Formula 20 (KR- 20) were 0.86 for the answer tier and 0.87 for the reasoning tier. The diagnostic findings showed that students exhibited the highest level of misconceptions in subtraction of polynomials. Common misconceptions included errors in term distribution, incorrect application of negative signs, and improper combination of like terms.
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