Abstract:
The achievement of students in Mathematic has been a source of worry to
the society at large. Mathematics which is a very important subject is dreadedd by majority of leaners and if given the opportunity, students would
be willing to avoid its inclusion in the list of subjects to be offered in
schools. Several reasons have been adduced to this low achievement in
mathematics by students among which is thc arrangement of test items
administered to them at both internal and external examinations. However,
doubts have been raised, over the effectiveness of the type of instrument -
paper and pencil type - administered by classroom teachers which lack in
the major indices of validity, reliability and structure This study therefore waS designed to determined the effect of the three modes of ordering test
items on students' achievement in sccondnry school mathematic To carry
out the study, four research questions and one hypothesis were formulated.
An instrument containing 40 items and arranged in the three modes was
developed and administered to a samplc of 120 out of a population of 2514
SS3 student to obtain the data. Mean, Standard Deviation and Pearson
Product Moment Correlation Coefficient formulation was used in answering the
research questions while the ANOVA was used in testing the hypothesis, at
0.05 level of significance. The study revealed among other things that there
is significant difference in the mean achicvement of students on the tests
with diferents modes items of assembly. However, the observed difference
in the achievement of the students prescnted with test items arranged from
least difficult to most difficult or from most difficult to least difficult was not
signifycant. The mean score of the students presented with test items
arranged from least difficult to most difficult was 47.05, a little higher than
the mean score of students presented with test items arranged from most
difficult to least difficult which is 45.65. Randomization of the test items
recorded a mean score of 36.65, the lowest of the three groups. Specifically,
thc mean difference occured when the tcst itcms were randomized. Based
on the findings of the study recommendation were made for the various
examination bodies like WAEC, NECO and JAMB and State Ministries of
Education, to organize workshops and seminars for teaching of mathematics in secondary schools where papers emphasizing the importance and
construction of items of these modes of ordering will be presented.
Suggestions were also made for further construction of quality
test items especially the one used in quality and placement examination
at both internal and external levels.
