




































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. 

 


