The adoption of the IRT (item response theory) in the National High School Exam (Enem) has generated doubt and complaints from the student population. Even though this type of measurement marks a necessary and salutary step towards a more modern educational assessment culture, the use of the IRT in university entrance examinations is fundamentally flawed. This is a direct consequence of the fact that the IRT grades are combined with essay marks which are obtained through a completely different measurement scale. As such, the current method of combining these incompatible numerical grades generates a significant distortion in the final ranking of approved students. Up to 76% of students that would have been approved if the standard methodology were used fail to do so and have to try again in the following year.
Enem; High school; IRT; Educational assessment
