Development and Validation of Test for Assessing Student Skills in Motor Vehicle Mechanic Work for Technical Colleges

Abstract

The study focused on the development and validation of test for assessing technical college students in motor vehicle mechanic work. The study adopted instrumentation design. It was carried out in technical colleges in Ondo and Ekiti states. The population of the study comprised 120 NTC III students in technical colleges in Ondo and Ekiti states. No sample was done; the entire population was used for the study.The instrument for data collection was the procsess skill rating scale test items. The process skill rating scale test items consist of 222 (items) in service station mechanic work, 138(items) in petrol engine maintenance work, 193(items) in engine reconditioning, 224(items) in diesel engine maintenance work and 316(items) in auto electricity/electronics maintenance work and were found to be appropriate for inclusion in the processskill rating scale test. These items were developed using a task analysis questionnaire and were rated by experts in motor vehicle mechanic work. Twelve motor vehicle mechanic work teachers in the area of the study were used as validators from two technical colleges offering motor vehicle mechanic work in Ekiti and Ondo states. The process skill rating scale test was tried out on 24 NTCstudent III from the two technical colleges in the area of the study. In each of the two technical colleges used for the try out, four motor vehicle mechanic work teachers were used as the 4-man panel of assessors for observing and assessing the student as they carry out the task. The internal consistency reliability coefficient of the process skill rating scale test items in motor vehicle mechanic workrevealed0 .87 for service station mechanic work,0.89for petrol engine maintenance work,0.84 for engine reconditioning work, 0.86 for diesel engine maintenance work and0.96for auto electricity/electronics. The test items were considered peer-wise using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation and on individual items/cluster groupings using Kendall Tau, the values of coefficient (r and w) for all the items of the process skill rating scale were found to be high, indicating high reliability and agreement among the assessors. The obtained tau (w) for the various programmes in motor vehicle mechanic work ranged between 0.55 to 0.84and there was significant relationship between four raters’ ratings of the process skills ofstudents in the test thus making them to be worthy of being included into the final copy of the process skill rating scale. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilized to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. It was found out that there was significant difference in the mean scores of the three ability groups (High, average and low ability). Turkey-Kramer test for multiple comparison revealed that there was a significant difference in the mean scores of the high ability and average ability. It was therefore recommended that the examination bodies in charge of conducting and organizing examinations for the technical colleges (NABTEB) should integrate theprocess skill test items in their examination for certification of student in motor vehicle mechanic work at NTC level. It was also recommended that the developed process skill rating scale test items in motor vehicle mechanic work should be adopted by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) as a means of assessing motor vehicle mechanic work/ automobile technology which is one of the newly introduced 32 trade programmes for Nigerian secondary schools.