Impact of Item Arrangement on the Academic Performance of Public Primary School Pupils in Literacy Skills Multiple Choice Test in Lagos State, Nigeria
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Abstract
The study investigated the Impact of Item Arrangement on the Academic Performance of Public Primary School Pupils in Literacy Skills Multiple Choice Test. Three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the focus of this study as survey research design type which aids in the collection of data from large participants in order to unveil the existence of a phenomenon was employed in this study. Population comprises of public primary school pupils in Lagos State as target population involves Basic 5 pupils. Sample of two hundred and fifty (250) pupils was selected through purposive sampling technique. A Self-structured 20 item Literacy Skills Multiple Choice Test (20-LSMCT) on 4-options objective test form with test forms A, B, C was used to generate data. Test Form A contained items arranged from Easy To-Difficult (ETD), Form B, items arranged from Difficult-To-Easy (DTE), Form C arranged using Randomised format (RSD). The instrument was content validated and Cronbach alpha form of reliability, produced a coefficient of R= 0.792; t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) statistical analysis were used to analyse the data and tested at 0.05 significant level. The findings revealed that sex contributed to the difference in the academic performance of pupils especially when items were arranged from Easy to Difficult forms. The study concluded that arrangement of items will go a long way to minimize examination malpractice under any examination condition. The study recommended that test developers should ensure that descending order form of item arrangement be introduced when planning or developing tests.
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References
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