Advances in Arts, Social Sciences and Education Research

http://www.ejournal.sedinst.com Science Education Development Institute, 2011 Volume 1 (Issue 1): 7 14, 2011 Printed in Nigeria ITEM DIFFICULTY OF TEST SCORES AND ITS IMPACT ON EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE: IMPLICATIONS FOR COUNSELLING PRACTICE Odeleye, D.A., Okunola, O.M. and Oshin, A. A. Dept of Counsellor & Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria ABSTRACT The study analyzed the impact of item difficulty of test scores on reported cases of examination malpractice of examinations conducted by the West African Senior School Examination. The population for the study consisted of all candidates that registered and sat for the WASSCE from June 2002 June 2006 caught and reported to have committed various types of examination malpractice. The data was subjected to statistical treatment and analysis using percentages and mean average. Sampling statistics (t-distribution) was used to test the impact of item difficulty on examination malpractice at alpha 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that Social Science subjects were mostly threatened by examination malpractice (0.57%) followed by Science subjects (0.50%) while the Core subjects (English Language and Mathematics) recorded 0.46%. Results also revealed that there was no significant impact of item difficulty of tests of the examinations on reported cases of examination malpractice. Recommendations were made to improve performance of students and reduce the incidence of examination malpractice. KEYWORDS: Item Difficulty, Test Scores, Examination Malpractice INTRODUCTION Examinations are often put in place as a procedure towards checking if learning has actually taken place in a learner or student. While the Websters Dictionary (1995) defines education as instruction or training by which people (generally young) learn to develop and use their mental, moral and physical powers, examination, according to Bello, Kolajo and Uduh (2010), is the process of finding out how much of the objectives of specific learning tasks a learner has learnt. For education to have an actual and definite meaning, assessment and evaluation of learners achievement has to take place. According to Gronlund (1978), evaluation techniques should be viewed as a process of obtaining information upon which to base educational decisions. He further counseled that types of decisions to be made should be identified before the evaluation procedure. Hence, no evaluation procedure would be utilized unless by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for Anglophone West it contributed to improved decisions of an instructional guidance and administrative procedure. Gronlund (1978) contends that evaluation is a systematic process of determining the extent to which instructional objective are achieved by pupils. To add to these facts, it is noteworthy to know that effective evaluation is a major tool constantly used where standardized test scores prevail as expected of both Continuous Assessment Scores (CASS) and Terminal Assessment Scores (TASS). Standardized testing in Nigeria is principally the function of bodies such as the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), National Examinations Council (NECO), National Teachers Institute (NTI), National Business and Technical Education Board (NABTEB), Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) etc. At the Senior Secondary School Certificate level, certificate examinations are conducted

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Advances in Arts, Social Sciences and Education Research

African sub-regions, while the Nigeria Examinations Council (NECO) conduct the examinations for Nigerian students. Akinpelu (1993) maintains that examination influences a nations educational system as it can be used as an instrument of educational reform. Any system where only certificates are used as basis for admission and employment tend to make corrupt individuals explore Table 1: YEAR 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 various means of excelling in examination attempts. Such usually result in examination malpractices. Badekale (2002) made it real to believe that examination malpractice actually exists in Nigeria as she reported that some candidates restituted as shown in Table 1 and for their consciences to be free, they returned their certificates, even though, WAEC in its own has a way of withdrawing such certificates.

STATISTICS OF CANDIDATES THAT SOUGHT FOR RESTITUTION (1997 2001)

EXAMINATION MAY/JUNE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER MAY/JUNE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER MAY/JUNE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER MAY/JUNE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER MAY/JUNE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

NO. OF CANDIDATES 16 12 11 23 06 34 11 25 07 13 with poor study habits and academic performance while Uduh (2010) informed that poor knowledge of the recommended text and very poor expressions of candidates in some subjects are evident of poor coverage of the syllabuses. The item difficulty index is one of the most useful, and most frequently reported, item analysis statistics. It is a measure of the proportion of examinees who answered the item correctly; for this reason it is frequently called the p-value. As the proportion of examinees who got the item right, the p-value might more properly be called the item easiness index, rather than the item difficulty. It can range between 0.0 and 1.0, with a higher value indicating that a greater proportion of examinees responded to the item correctly, and it was thus an easier item. While criterionreferenced tests (CRTs), with their emphasis on mastery-testing, consist of items that have p-values of .9 or above, norm-referenced tests (NRTs), on the other hand, Thus, many of the items on an NRT will have difficulty indexes between .4 and .6. Achievement tests, which are designed to be harder overall and to spread out the examinees' scores, are examples of norm-referenced tests.

Maduemezia (1999) states that the first publicly reported case of examination malpractice in Nigeria occurred in 1914 during the years of the Senior Cambridge Local Syndicate Examinations (38 years before the establishment of the West African Examinations Council). Adeleke (2004) asserts that the process examination malpractice produced potential recruits for other economic and financial crimes like Advanced Fee Fraud (419) and money laundering. He further claimed that unless examination malpractice is eradicated and educational institutions restored as places for transmitting ethical values, the war against corruption would be a mirage. It could therefore be further argued that students poor performance tend to contribute to the high and increasing cases of examination malpractice and irregularities recorded in large scale public examination. Oshin (2008) revealed that examination malpractice did not have significant impact on validity of test scores while Obe (1993) claimed that examination fraud occurred when the examination subject was important. Further, David (1987) noted that students who indulged in cheating and forgery of certificates were THE PROBLEM

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Advances in Arts, Social Sciences and Education Research

Umar (2004) maintained that the biggest avenue for cheating are secondary schools. Many school principals were big time perpetrators, and in the quest to have the names of their schools praised and recognized, they encouraged and aided the crime. Oluyeba and Daramola (1993) expressed that examination malpractice had been a perennial problem in the nations educational sector and this had been a major cause for concern to students, parents and policy makers. It covers all segments of the Nigerian educational system from primary to tertiary levels. A few identified causes of this menace to the Nigerian educational system are poor study habits and preparation for examinations, low morality, poor school facilities and poor coverage of syllabi (David, 1987; Adekale, 1993; Omotoso, 1990; Uduh, 2010). This study therefore sought to analyze the extent and dimension of the effect that difficult test items has on examination malpractice. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. Which subject groups were mostly threatened by examination malpractice? 2. Are male students more involved in examination malpractice than female students? 3. Which subject groups were mostly threatened by difficult test items? 4. Did difficulty of examination test items have significant relationship with the occurrence of examination malpractice? discharge if their testing duties, activities and operations. Findings of this study provide empirical evidence for the formulation of enduring antidotes to examination malpractice in the conduct of the Senior Certificate Examinations. SCOPE OF THE STUDY This study focused on the performance of all candidates that sat for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in Oyo state, Nigeria between 2002 and 2006. It considered candidates gender but did not consider candidates age and type of school where the candidate sat for the examination and the parental background. RESEARCH DESIGN Descriptive survey research was adopted for this study. SAMPLE AND SAMPLING PROCEEDURE The procedure for the selection of the sample mainly involved the convenience sample technique. This was so because of the assemblage of the results of all candidates that sat for the examination. Only the results of candidates who scored excellent to credits (i.e. 1-6) were extracted along with the corresponding examination malpractice reports from 2002 2006. RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS The research instruments used were: 1, Appendix A- used in obtaining the performance of candidates that sat for the May/June WASSCE from 2002 2006. 2, Appendix B used in sorting the forty (40) school and examination subjects into groups. METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS For the purpose of answering Research Questions 1 and 2, the data collected were analyzed using simple percentages and mean scores. Geographical illustrations were also used to illustrate the pattern

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY The findings of this study will assist stakeholders and mostly teachers in ensuring that the examination syllabuses were adequately covered. It will also help the educational assessment bodies towards improving on the test quality, hence making them more responsive and operative in the of examination malpractice and item difficulty indices (By subject groups). Research Question 3 was exposed to treatment using students t-test.

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Advances in Arts, Social Sciences and Education Research

RESULTS AND FINDINGS Research Question 1 Which subject groups were mostly threatened by examination malpractice? Table 1 shows the distribution of malpractice cases across the six (6) subject groups TABLE 1: ANALYSIS OF RESULTS/ITEM DIFFICULTY INDEX (BOTH GENDERS) ITEM DIFFICULTY INDEX 0.324 0.258 0.172 0.339 0.240 0.631 1.964 0.327 Science Core Vocational Business Arts

S/No. 1 2 3 4 5 6

SUBJECT GROUP ARTS BUSINESS CORE SCIENCE SOCIAL SCIENCE VOCATIONAL MEAN (X)

% SAT 75.60 90.75 99.00 91.20 93.60 77.91 528.06 88.01

1*6 24.51 23.41 17.10 31.10 22.42 49.18 167.72 27.95

MALPRACTICE CASES 0.33 0.29 0.46 0.50 0.57 0.02 2.17 0.36 - 0.50 - 0.46 - 0.02 - 0.29 - 0.33

Analysis revealed the rate of involvement of students in malpractice according to their subject groups to be as follows: Social Science- 0.57

FIG. 1: ANALYSIS OF EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE RATE AND ITEM DIFFICULTY INDEX BY GENDER
70.00

PERCENTAGE OF IN V O L V E M E N T

60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 0.00 FEMALE ARTS MALE ARTS FEMALE MALE FEMALE CORE MALE CORE FEMALE SCIENCE MALE SCIENCE FEMALE SOCIAL SCIENCE MALE FEMALE MALE 1 * 6 (n) DIFFICULTY INDEX (P) MALPRACTICE CASES

BUSINESS BUSINESS

SOCIAL VOCATIONAL VOCATIONAL SCIENCE

GROUPED SUBJECTS

However, the study revealed that Social Science subjects recorded the highest malpractice cases (0.57%), followed by Science subjects (0.50%) and then the Core subjects (English Language and Mathematics) with 0.46% as revealed in Fig. 1A.

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Advances in Arts, Social Sciences and Education Research

FIG. 1A: ANALYSIS OF EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE RATE AND ITEM DIFFICULTY INDEX (BOTH GENDERS)
70.00 60.00

PERCENTAGE OF INVOLVEMENT

50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 0.00 ARTS BUSINESS CORE SCIENCE SOCIAL SCIENCE VOCATIONAL 1 * 6 (n) DIFFICULTY INDEX MALPRACTICE CASES

GROUPED SUBJECTS

Research Question 2 Are male students more involved in examination malpractice than female students? The results in Table 2 reveal the relative involvement of male and female students in examination malpractice TABLE 2: STATISTICS OF RESULTS OF THE WASSCE (BY GENDER) % SAT 73.00 78.19 92.56 88.94 99.02 98.98 89.66 92.74 93.82 93.37 78.79 77.02 ITEM DIFFICULTY INDEX 0.295 0.352 0.264 0.252 0.169 0.176 0.265 0.414 0.233 0.246 0.630 0.632 MALPRACTICE CASES 0.29 0.37 0.24 0.34 0.39 0.53 0.53 0.47 0.48 0.65 0.01 0.02

S/No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

GROUP ARTS ARTS BUSINESS BUSINESS CORE CORE SCIENCE SCIENCE SOCIAL SCIENCE SOCIAL SCIENCE VOCATIONAL VOCATIONAL

GENDER FEMALE MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE MALE

1*6 21.53 27.48 24.40 22.42 16.74 17.46 23.78 38.42 21.89 22.95 49.67 48.68

Summarizing the statistics on this table, the relative involvement of male and female students in examination malpractice is 0.39 and 0.32 respectively, i.e. male students are more involved than female students. Research Question 3 Which subject groups were mostly threatened by difficult test items? The bar graph below attempts to proffer a solution to this question.

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Advances in Arts, Social Sciences and Education Research

FIG. 2: ANALYSIS OF CANDIDATE'S RESULTS AND CORRESPONDING ITEM DIFFICULTY INDEX
70.00

PERCENTAGE OF PASSES AND ITEM DIFFICULTY INDEX

60.00

50.00

40.00 1*6 30.00 DIFFICULTY INDEX (P)

20.00

10.00

0.00 ARTS BUSINESS CORE SCIENCE SOCIAL SCIENCE VOCATIONAL

GROUPED SUBJECT

This graph reveals that Vocational subjects have the highest difficulty index, followed by Science subjects. The Core subjects recorded the lowest difficulty level.

Research Question 4 Did difficulty of examination test items have significant relationship with the occurrence of examination malpractice? Table 4: ANALYSIS OF RESULTS OF THE IMPACT OF ITEM DIFFICULTY OF TEST SCORES ON EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE X1 (Difficulty Index) 196.43 P < 0.05 X2 (Malpractice Cases) 2.17 X 12 X 22 N Df Cal. (t-value) Table (t-value)

7,720.30

0.98

12

10

1.009

2.228

Results in Table 4 revealed that the calculated value of 1.009 was achieved at 0.05 alpha level of significance is lower than the table value of 2.228. Since the calculated value is fully contained in the table value, it implies that difficulty of test items did not have significant impact on examination malpractice. This finding is therefore not in support of Obe (1993) who claimed that examination fraud occurred when the examination subject was important while it supports Oshin (2008) who claimed that examination malpractice did not have significant impact on validity of test scores. Discussion The study revealed that candidates performed best in vocational subjects (49.19%) while they performed worst in core subjects (English Language and Mathematics) (17.10%). If item analysis is the statistical technique of

reviewing every item on a test with a view of refining the whole test and going by Obe (1993) who claimed that if item difficulty range between 0.2 and 0.8, they are quite suitable on achievement tests, the best index being 0.5. This assertion, in the course of this study implies that candidates exhibited a mean average of 0.33 difficulty index, with a deviation of 0.17 away from the best recommended. This assertion therefore revealed that the test items of the examination papers within the study period were suitable for their purposes. Findings also revealed that the Mathematics and English Language recorded the highest attendance (99.0%). This is a pointer that the subjects were of very high importance to the students as they were mostly needed to complement other subjects in the course of further studies or request for employment. A cursory look at the analysis of results shown in Table 3 also revealed that

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Advances in Arts, Social Sciences and Education Research

vocational subjects recorded the least participatory attendance (77.91%). This shows that the subjects were of less importance. Examination malpractice cases of these subjects showed that candidates committed more malpractices in English Language and Mathematics (0.46%) than in vocational subjects (0.02%) these findings corroborates Obe (1993) who claimed that examination fraud occurred when the examination subject was important. The study further revealed that the male child performed better than the girl child with an overall performance in four of the six subject groups. These are Arts, Core subjects, Science and Social Science. The male child recorded 27.48% pass rates while the girl child recorded 21.53% pass rates in the Arts subjects. The male child recorded 17.46% in Core subjects (English Language and Mathematics) while the girl child recorded 16.74%. The male child recorded 38.42% pass rate in the science subjects against 23.78% exhibited by the girl child. In the social science subjects, the male child recorded a pass rate of 22.95% while the girl child recorded 21.89%. Findings of this study revealed that academic achievement of candidates within the study period was extremely low at a mean average of 27.95% success rates and item difficulty index of 0.327. RECOMMENDATIONS In view of the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made to improve performance of students and reduce the incidence of examination malpractice: REFERENCES Adeleke, Bayo. Exam. Malpractices: Zamfara Tops List Survey. A survey conducted by the Exam. Ethics Project (EEP) .This Day (Lagos), September 15, 2004. 2004. a, Stakeholders particularly operators of schools and subject teachers should pay more serious attention to the teaching of Mathematics and English Language; Extra attention should also be paid to teaching methods of other school subjects as candidates performance were not very impressive; Improvements should be made in the quality of teachers recruited/posted to teach in our schools. Teachers should have teaching qualification in the subjects that they teach. For instance, a Mathematics teacher should hold a university degree in Mathematics Education and not a degree in Engineering or Chemistry. This direction will greatly improve the teacher quality index; Students should not be promoted on trial nor given mass promotion. Academically deficient students should be given the opportunity of repeating a class for not more than two times after which, such students should be expelled from the school system if the fail to exhibit traits of improvement; Concentration should be given to ensuring that school and teaching equipments including visual aids are available as these will greatly assist learning.

b,

c,

d,

e,

Akinpelu, J.A. Ethical Issues in Examination Malpractice. In Maduka, C. (Ed), Examination Malpractice: Causes, Implication and Remedies. 1993. Badekale, Joy. Restitution and Examinees. The WAEC Experience. A Paper Presented

at the WAEC Monthly Seminar. 2002. David, A. Crime and Social Control in Nigeria, A Paper Presented at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, 1987. Gronlund, N. E. Measurement and Evaluation in Teaching, third edition, New York:Macmillan. 1978 Obe, E. O. Alternative Ways to Examining, In Maduka, C. (Ed), Examination Maduemezia, M. U. Examination Malpractice In the Senior School CertificateExamination: Current Trends, Problems and Prospects. A paper presented at the WAEC Seminar, Lagos. 1999.

Malpractice:Causes, Implications Remedies. AMBIK Press, Benin.1983.

and

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Oluyeba, N. F. & Daramola, S. O. Incidences and Detection of Examination Malpractices in Nigerian Public Examinations. In Maduka, C. (Ed.) Examination Malpractice: Causes, Implications and Remedies. 1993. Oshin, Anthony A. Analysis Of Reported Cases Of Examination Malpractice: Implication On Validity Of Test Scores. A Paper Presented at the WAEC Monthly Seminar. 2008.

Uduh, Collins A. O. Overcoming Candidates Poor Performance At The West African Senior School Certificate Examinations. A Paper Presented at the WAEC Monthly Seminar. 2010. Umar, T. T. The Prolifiration of Examination Malpractices, curled from the Internet, www.gamji.com/amviews156.htm, Monday, September 20 2004. Webster, M. The new Dictionary of The English Language, Lexicon Publications. Inc. New York 1997.

Received for Publication: 13/08/11 Accepted for Publication: 08/10/11 Corresponding Author Odeleye, D.A., Dept of Counsellor & Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria

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