1 ELT FORUM 4 (1) (2015) Journal of English Language Teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt THE COMPARISON BETWEEN THE SECOND MID-TERM ENGLISH TESTS FOR THE SEVENTH GRADERSMADE BY THE STATE AND PRIVATE SCHOOL CERTIFIED ENGLISH TEACHERS (The case of test items analysis of SMP N 1 Semarang and SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014) Reza Wisnu Saputra English Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Semarang Aticle Info ________________ Article History: Received in Juni 2015 Approved in Juli 2015 Published in Agustus 2015 ________________ Keywords: English Mid-term Test, State and Private Certified English Teachers, Item Analysis, Validity, Reliability, Item Facility, Item Discrimination Power. ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ One of the teacher’s competencies is the ability in designing a good test. Designing a test is not an easy task to be done. Even for a certified teacher who has already had lot of experiences in teaching and learning process. Through this study, the writer wanted to find out the quality of the second mid-term English tests for the seventh graders made by state and private school certified English teachers. The objective of this study was to compare those tests in term of (1) the validity, (2) the reliability, (3) the item facility, and (4) the item discrimination power. The method used in this study was comparative quantitative research. The tests were takenfrom the teachers of SMP N 1 Semarang as the state school and SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang as the private school.From the result of the analysis, it was found that the quality of both tests were not good enough. There were 42 items out of 50 items from the mid-term test of SMP N 1 Semarang which did not meet the requirement as a good test. Meanwhile, from the mid-term test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang, there were 38 items out of 50 items which did not meet the requirements as good test. However, from this result, the mid-term test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang was much better than the mid-term test of SMP N 1 Semarang. In conclusion, the qualities of the second mid-term English tests made by the state and private school certified English teachers still need to be revised carefully. Especially, from the view of validity, reliability, item facility, and item discrimination. In addition, from the classification of the item which can be used from those tests, there was a little number of items which can be used.Consequently, the certified English teachers need to improve their knowledge and ability in designing a good test for their students. © 2015 Universitas Negeri Semarang  Correspondent Address: B3 Building FBS Unnes Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 E-mail: reza.wisnu@yahoo.com ISSN 2252-6706 Reza Wisnu Saputra / Journal of English Language Teaching 4 (1) (2015) 2 INTRODUCTION The quality of education can be seen through the teacher competencies. Teachers have an important role in improving education quality. They transfer the knowledge to their students to be well-educated person. Since 2007, Government has striven for improving the quality of teacher by designing a program which is called certification. The aim of certification is also to improve teachers’ prosperity. The Teacher and Lecturer Constitution article 16 states that through certification, it is expected that there will be also significant improvement in education. Certification program will also guarantee the quality of teacher since there will be an examination to get this certification program. Besides, the government believes that this program may eliminate the deceit in education world. In fact, some teachers may not transfer their knowledge to their students very well. The students find it difficult to perceive what teacher teaches. That problem may be related to the competency of the teacher. According to the Government Regulation No 19 in the year of 2005, there are four competencies which should be possessed by a teacher. They are pedagogic competency, personality competency, professionalism competency, and social competency. One of the teacher’s competencies which are very important is pedagogic competence. It deals with the teacher’s ability to organize teaching and learning process, comprehend students’ character, design assessment, and develop students’ potential (Rifa’i: 2010). So, the competency of the teacher could be seen from the ability to design assessment. Assessment is given by the teacher to find out whether the students understand what they have perceived during learning process. One kind of assessments which can be found in the school is test. The forms of test itself are many and various. One of them is multiple choice tests. The use of multiple choice tests is due to its ease of being administered. That is why many teachers use this kind of tests. Although multiple choice tests are easy to be administered, this is also a kind of test which is difficult to be designed. The writer got experiences when he did the teaching practice in a certain school. He found that, in designing a mid-term test, the certified teacher only took the items from the internet whose quality were not clear enough. In fact, in designing a test, the teacher should consider the items very well. Mid-term test is a test which is fully made by a teacher, not a group of teachers. It will test the ability of a teacher in designing a test individually. Consequently, the writer wanted to find out the quality of mid-term test made by the other certified teachers. He also wanted to see the difference between the mid- term test made by the teacher of private and state school. Some people believe that the quality of private school is not good enough if it compares with the quality of state school. After doing consideration, the writer chose a private and a state school to be used as the subject of the research. METHOD OF INVESTIGATION In this study, the writer used comparative method. Nazir (2005: 58) states that comparative research is a kind of descriptive research whose aim is to find out the fundamental answer about cause and effect by analyzing the factors which causes the occurrence of the phenomenon. Through this research, the writer wanted to compare the quality of the tests made by a state school certified English teacher and a private school certified English teacher by describing the result of the analysis.As the result, the writer used descriptive comparative research design. The writer conducted the research by taking a set of second mid-term English test and students’ answer sheets from a class of different schools in the academic year of 2013/2014. The schools which have been chosen by the writer are a state school and aprivate school. The first school is SMP N 1 Semarang as the state school. Meanwhile, the second school is SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang as the state school. The purpose of this study is to analyze the quality of each second mid-term English test from two different schools; they are SMP N 1 Reza Wisnu Saputra / Journal of English Language Teaching 4 (1) (2015) 3 Semarang and SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang; by analyzing the students’ answer sheet of second mid-term English test. Then, the sample of this study is taken from one of seventh grade classes of each school. The writer observed the classes which were taught by those teachers. From those classes, he observed the average achievement of each class. Then, he found 2 classes which had the same average achievement. By using simple random sampling technique, the writer decided to choose one of those two classes to be used as the sample. The writer took thirty students’ answer sheets from VII G class at SMP N 1 Semarang. As the comparison, the writer also took thirty students’ answer sheets from VII D class at SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang. The writer analyzed the test by finding out the validity, reliability, item facility, and item discrimination of both tests. He used some certain formula to analyze the tests, such as Pearson’s Product Moment Formula and Kuder Richardson 20 Formula. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION Based on the analysis made by the writer, he found that there were some items from both mid-term tests which did not fulfill the requirements as a good test item. The result of analysis of both mid-term tests was presented in the table below: Analysis of the English Mid-term Test of SMP N 1 Semarang Table 1 The Analysis of the English Mid-term Test of SMP N 1 Semarang Result Validity Out of 50 items, 13 items were valid and 37 items were invalid. The valid items were number 4, 11, 15, 22, 25, 29, 31, 33, 40, 41, 42, 46, and 49. Reliability All of the items had r11 values of 0.632. Meanwhile, the r table was 0.361. After consulting to the r table, it was found that r 11 > r table. From the computation of reliability, it was found that all items were reliable. Difficulty Level 31 items were easy, 15 items were moderate, and 4 items were difficult. Discriminating Power 40 items were poor, 7 items were satisfactory, 3 items were good Reza Wisnu Saputra / Journal of English Language Teaching 4 (1) (2015) 4 Analysis of the English Mid-term Test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang Table 2 The Analysis of the English Mid-term Test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang By using the Gronlund’s criteria, the writer has classified the items which still can be used, can be used with several revision, and be discarded. From the second mid-term English test of SMP N 1 Semarang, there were 3 items which still can be used, 5 items which still can be used with several revisions, and 42 items which should be discarded. Meanwhile, from the second mid- term English test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang, there were 8 items which still can be used, 4 items which still can be used with several revisions, and 38 items which should be discarded. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Conclusion After doing the analysis, there were some conclusions the writer could draw from his research. Those are: 1. From the second mid-term English test of SMP N 1 Semarang, in terms of the validity, there were only 13 valid test items. The mean of validity of this test was 0.266. 2. Meanwhile, from the second mid-term English test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang, there were only 21 valid test items and the mean of validity was 0.309. 3. In term of the reliability, the second mid- term English test of SMP N 1 Semarang had the coefficient of reliability of 0.632, while the second mid-term English test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang had the coefficient of reliability of 0.815 4. From the aspect of item facility of the test, the second mid-term English test of SMP N 1 Semarang had the mean of item facility of 0.775. By referring to the mean of item facility, this test was classified into an easy test. Meanwhile, the second mid-term English test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang had the mean of item facility of 0.799. It could be said that this test was classified into an easy test. 5. In term of the item discrimination power, the second mid-term English test of SMP N 1 Semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014 had the mean of item discrimination power of 0.121. Meanwhile, the second mid-term English test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang had the mean of item discrimination power of 0.181 Result Validity Out of 50 items, 21 items were valid and 29 items were invalid. The valid items were number 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 33, 45, 47, and, 49. Reliability All of the items had r11 values of 0.815. Meanwhile, the r table was 0.361. After consulting to the r table, it was found that r 11 > r table. From the computation of reliability, it was found that all items were reliable. Difficulty Level 36 items were easy and 14 items were moderate. Discriminating Power 38 items were poor, 6 items were satisfactory, 4 items were good, and 2 items were excellent Reza Wisnu Saputra / Journal of English Language Teaching 4 (1) (2015) 5 6. Based on the classification made by the writer, from the second mid-term English test of SMP N 1 Semarang, there were 3 items which still can be used, 5 items which still can be used with several revisions, and 42 items which should be discarded. 7. Meanwhile, from the second mid-term English test of SMP Kesatrian 2 Semarang, there were 8 items which still can be used, 4 items which still can be used with several revisions, and 38 items which should be discarded. Suggestion The writer will give some suggestions for the test maker, in this case is the teacher, to design a good test: 1. Prepare the test well before it is used. 2. Pay more attention to the item level of difficulty. 3. Design the test based on the curriculum and the materials which wants to be measured. 4. Minimize the use of obvious clues to avoid the ineffectiveness of an item or its option. 5. From the analysis done by the writer, the item which still can be used and revised should be saved by the test maker. They may be used in the next mid-term test. REFERENCES Azwar, MA, Drs.Saefudin, 1996.Test Prestasi.Second Edition. Yogyakarta: PustakaPelajar Brown, H.D. 2004.Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices. London: Longman Pearson. Gronlund, N. E. 1981. Measurement and Evaluation in Teaching. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. Harris, P. 1969. Testing English as a Second Language. New York: McGraw Hill. Nuryulia, I.R. 2009. Item Analysis of Achievement Test for The Seventh Grade Students of SMP N 1Moga, Pemalang in the Academic Year 2008/2009. (Final Project Semarang State University) Parr, A.M. 2006. Teacher Made Test Reliability: A Comparison of Test Score and Student Study Habits From Friday to Monday in a High School Biology Class in Monroe County Ohio. Thesis. Ohio: Marietta College.