Empirical Analysis of Physics Test Instruments to Measure Graphical Representation Abilities in “Temperature and Heat” Topics

Abstract

This study focused on developing physics test instruments for senior high school students on the topics of temperature and heat. The study aimed to determine (i) the quality of the test instrument content, (ii) the feasibility of the test instrument, and (iii) students’ graphic representation abilities on “Temperature and Heat” topics. The test instrument development went through three stages, namely test design, testing, and test assembly. The test instrument was tested in the Science Class XII of the Public Senior High School 5 Yogyakarta with a total of 195 students as research subjects. The item analyzes in this study included analysis of model validity, reliability, level of difficulty, and level of students’ ability. The research results showed that the test instrument for the graphical representation of “Temperature and Heat” topics had good content quality but still needed to be improved. The feasibility of the graphic representation test instrument showed that there were seven items that were declared valid and reliable even though the items tested did not conform to the Raschmodel. However, these seven items were still suitable for use on a wide scale to measure graphical representations of “Temperature and Heat” topics. Finally, in the analysis of students’ abilities regarding graphical representation individually, the largest percentage was in the low category, while, overall, the students’ abilities level was classified as medium. Thus, it was necessary to improve question items that involve graphical representation that meet the criteria for good, valid, and reliable question items, and can improve students’ graphic representation abilities.

Keywords

• temperature and heat topics
• graphical representation
• physics test instruments