Developing Algebra-Based Mathematical Literacy Assessment Items Using Individual and Cultural Contexts for Grade VIII Students

Mathematical literacy assessment should capture students’ capacity to use mathematics in meaningful situations while maintaining sound measurement quality. This study aimed to develop and empirically evaluate an algebra-based mathematical literacy assessment for Grade VIII students that incorporates individual and Acehnese cultural contexts across different items within a single instrument. A Research and Development approach was employed using Tessmer’s formative evaluation framework, comprising preliminary analysis, self-evaluation, prototyping, and field testing. The one-to-one evaluation involved 6 students, the small-group evaluation involved 34 students, and the field test involved 128 students from four junior secondary schools in Banda Aceh. The final instrument consisted of 13 multiple-choice items, including 5 individual-context items and 8 Acehnese cultural-context items, and was evaluated through expert judgment and classical item analysis using ITEMAN. Expert validation yielded an overall mean score of 4.40, indicating strong content and contextual appropriateness. Field-test results showed that all 13 items were retained, with point-biserial coefficients ranging from 0.299 to 0.609 and an alpha reliability coefficient of 0.712. Item difficulty analysis identified 11 moderate items, 1 easy item, and 1 difficult item, while discrimination analysis classified 10 items as very good, 2 as good, and 1 as fair. Of the 39 distractors, 38 (97.44%) functioned effectively, while student responses indicated good attractiveness (71.1%) and usefulness (79%) and moderate perceived difficulty (55.6%). These findings indicate that individual and Acehnese cultural contexts can be systematically represented across an algebra-based mathematical literacy assessment while maintaining acceptable psychometric characteristics and favorable responses from the participating students.