INFLUENCE OF THREE MODES OF ORDERING TEST ITEMS ON SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN MATHEMATICS IN AWKA EDUCATION ZONE

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of three modes of ordering test items on senior secondary school students’ academic achievement in mathematics in Awka Education Zone. Four research questions guided the study and five null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level. The study adopted ex post-facto design. Population for the study comprised 5,057 senior secondary school three (SS3) students which comprised of 2259 males and 2798 females in all the public secondary schools in Awka Education zone of Anambra State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 380 SS3 students. The instrument for data collection for this study was General Mathematics Achievement Test (GMAT). The GMAT was validated by three experts, one in the Department of Science Education and another one in the Department of Educational Foundations (Measurement and Evaluation Unit), Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The third expert is from the Department of Mathematics, Nwafor Orizu College of Education Nsugbe. Kuder Richardson Formula 20 was used to obtain the reliability coefficient value of 0.79, 0.81 and 0.82 for least difficult to most difficult item, most difficult to least difficult items and items in randomized order respectively. The mean, standard deviation, Analysis of Variance and independent t-test were used for data analysis. The findings of the study showed that ordering of test items from least difficult to most difficult items favours the students more than ordering of test items from most difficult and randomized order. It was recommended among others that the examination bodies should adopt the method of arranging the test items from simple to complex order of difficulty.