Improving Quality of Assessment of Physics Learning Outcomes in Public and Private Secondary Schools in Plateau State through Training in Test Construction

Abstract

Quality classroom teaching and learning depend on the quality of evaluation and this in tum depends on quality information gathered throughassessment of learning outcomes. Gathering of quality assessment infonnation however, is only possible tltrottgh the use of quality assessment instruments. The study therefore looked at the quality of teacher-made tests used by physics teachers in private and public schools in Plateau State for assessment of classroom leaming outcomes and the extent to which training in test construction can improve their quality. An experimental stutly involving 26 physics teachers and 492 SSII students as sample was carried out. A pre-experiences questionnaire, physics teachers’ pre-and~post tests and aphysics archievement test judge to have high content validity with internal consistency relialnilitv coefiicient of 0.87 made up up the instruments for data collection. Judges’ ratings on text content and cognitive objective coverage, reliability scores and mean scores were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistic was used to test the hypothesis. Results show that quality of teachers’ tests is poor though tests of private school teachers were ofhigher quality than those of public schools. Training in test construction improved quality of test constructed by teachers but did not bridge achievement gaps between . in the in the two schools. Training and retraining of teachers in test construction is Iltcrefore recommended for improved assessment in schools.