Abstract

This paper discusses the effectiveness of the early evaluation questions conducted to determine the academic ability of the new students in the Department of Electrical, Electronics and Systems Engineering. Questions designed are knowledge based - on what the students have learned during their pre-university level. The results show students have weak basic knowledge and this is in contrast to the results obtained during the application for admission to Year 1 of university. Thus, early evaluation questions were implemented to see the relevance in assessing the student's ability, obtained by the use of Rasch analysis, WinSteps. The findings show that the initial assessment is an effective and appropriate method to assess the ability of students, where the Cronbach-? is 0.69 and achieve the acceptable ranges of PT-Measure, Mean Square Outfit or Outfit Mean Square (MNSQ) and z-standardized values (ZSTD) Outfit. This shows that Rasch analysis can be used to classify the questions and the students according to their performance level accurately and thus, reveal the true level of the students’ ability, despite the small number of samples.

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