| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 技術及職業教育研究所 === 95 === The purpose of the study is to investigate the item difficulty of the Pentomino combination tasks which appear in the Figural subscale of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) developed by College Entrance Examination Center (CEEC). The population of the SAT is Taiwan’s first-year senior high school students. The subscale was administered in January of 2007, and its norm was constituted of 1836 students, with 878 boys and 958 girls.
According to item characteristics ‘number of Pentominoes’ and ‘size of maximum complete rectangles’, the study conducted analyses of t-test and two-way ANOVA. The research results show that items are more difficult using more Pentominoes, because combinations and solutions are more complicated; items are more difficult when the size of maximum complete rectangles is larger, because there is less hint targets. The test scores interact with the number of Pentominoes and the size of maximum rectangles. The high score group scored about the same no matter the number of Pentominoes and the size of maximum rectangles. It is suggested that qualitative research can be conducted to the high score group for further investigation.
Later version of the figural subscale can increase item difficulty with more Pentominoes and larger rectangles. There are other possible factors to influence item difficulty, such as transformation strategy and the difficulty of each Pentomino, can be considered into future test revision.
Restricted by paper-and-pencil, some complicated spatial items are not easily drawn and shown in a 2D way, as a result, authentic spatial ability can not be tested adequately. It is suggested that more performance tests and computerized tests be developed to help investigate the construct of spatial ability, and the spatial theory and tests can be established to increase our understanding of the spatial ability and application.
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