ASSESSING STUDENTS ATTITUDE TOWARDS COMPUTER-BASED EXAMINATION IN KEBBI STATE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, ALIERO

ABSTRACT

This study looked into how Kebbi State University of Science and Technology (KSUSTA), in Aliero, students felt about computer-based exams (CBE). By employing a stratified random sample technique, a survey questionnaire was used in the study to gather data from 377 university undergraduate students. The rate of response was 93%. The overall findings indicate that a significant majority of the respondents (49%) strongly disagreed with feeling scared when working with computers. Additionally, 43% strongly agreed that their previous experience with computers had an impact on their performance in Computer-Based Examinations (CBE). Alternatively, 110 (31%) of participants strongly expressed their agreement with the statement that they encounter challenges while attempting to initiate the system calculator. A total of 212 respondents, accounting for 60% of the total, strongly agreed that the time given for calculation-related tests is inadequate. The study reveals that the Competency-Based Education (CBE) programme at the Kano State University of Science and Technology, Aliero (KSUSTA Aliero) is not without its own challenges and difficulties. The study suggests that the school administration should continually uphold the use of CBE technologies, enhance the level of openness in presenting results, and allocate more time for courses that include calculations.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Oxford advanced dictionary defines assessment as an opinion or a judgment about somebody or something that has been thought about very carefully. Within the educational circle, the term assessment means the variety of approaches that teachers or educators use to evaluate or judge, measure, and document the academic preparedness, learning progress, and skill proficiency of students from pre- nursery through college or university and adulthood. Academic evaluation seeks to find out how effectively students are studying and learning and is an inclusive element of the quest for improved education. It offers feedback to pupils or students, teachers, parents, administrators and the general public about the effectiveness of academic services.

 

The primary purpose of academic assessment is to enhance students’ understanding and teachers’ teaching as each answer the data it provides. Assessment ought to mirror smart instruction; occur unceasingly as a part of instruction; and provide data regarding the amount of learning or understanding that students square measure reaching. To ensure that students gain insight into their understanding and learning, regular feedback is important. Learners need to keep track of their learning and continuously evaluate their approaches as well as their present levels of understanding (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999). Assessment and feedback are important for helping people learn.

 

Utilizing computers to aid in assessment task has become a subject matter for many years; nonetheless, innovations have continuously transferred ancient assessment methods into computer environments. Additionally, in order to mechanically grade students’ projects or tasks, types of assessment approaches are more restricted (Elliot, 2008). Our lives have been affected by the revolution in the field of information communication technology. Therefore a replacement paradigm for assessment in womb-to-tomb learning is turning into necessary. In general, assessment has completely different ways in line with its functions. The two main styles of these ways are formative and summative assessment.

 

Formative assessment is utilized to grant feedback to learners and academics so as to guide their efforts toward attaining the objectives of the educational process. Summative assessment are employed to evaluate learner’s understanding and learning at the conclusion of a specific end of learning—usually at the end of course, training, semester, program, or school year. Summative assessments are graded tests, assignments, or projects that are used to determine whether students or learners have learned what they were expected to learn during the defined learning period. According to Bennett (2002), technology is a vital part of recent learning system. As a result, technology is additionally progressively required for the evaluation method to be authentic. Electronic assessment systems will be organized consistent with the character of the students’ response to check things into; fastened response systems and free response systems (Culwin, 1998). Consistent with Culwin (1998), fastened response systems that conjointly remarked as objectives, compels the student to possess a hard and fast response by choosing resolution from a pre-prepared list of solution options. Where, within the free response systems non-objective or essay, unanticipated answers make the student’s response. In such variety of systems, skills like meta- skills, essay writing and programming are assessed instead of reality or information assessment that represents the most domain of the primary sort. Furthermore, portfolios can be accustomed to evaluate learning outcomes. Moreover, according to Chun (2002), portfolios symbolize the most effective purpose of students’ learning, what they gather, put together and reproduce on samples square measure diagrammatical in their portfolios.

 

Computers have been used for many years to help assessment. The use of computers for the purpose of assessment is known as Computer-Based Examination (CBE). One amongst the earliest tries of Victimisation computers to help academic and assessment method refers to the first 1960’s philosopher (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) project was started at the University of Illinois (Woolley, 1994). TICCIT (Time-Shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled, Information Television) commenced in 1967, is another example of a large-scale venture for Victimisation computer systems in education. The history of electronic test can be traced to the use of computer system to mechanically evaluate the students’ programming assignments (Douce, Livingstone & Orwell, 2005). One of the first tries of Victimisation computer systems to alter the method of evaluating students’ programming task was the “Automatic Grader” (Hollingsworth, 1960). Instead of Victimisation, Programas, a compiler for the programming assignments, conjointly aided the scholar to higher learn programming, and also helps the instructor to supervise a larger variety of students at the same course. Another use for the automated critic was distance learning (Hollingsworth, 1960). Writers of “Automatic grading programs, Communications of the ACM” conferred another system for mechanically evaluating programming assignment written in Algol. Algol system was utilized by the scholars of University of Stanford in their numerical analysis course to evaluate their programming assignment. The system was accountable of information supply, for recording issues and period of time observation.

 

Assessment contends an important part for promoting learners’ performance and conjointly the level of excellence of educational tools. Assessment as an integral a part of the educational style was laid low with the revolution of personal computers within the 1980’s (Reiser, 2001). Assessment Systems in different fields like arithmetic (Rottmann & Hudson, 1983) and chemistry (Myers, 1986) appeared once shortly. The 1990’s was laid low with the vital influence of the World Wide Web (WWW), ever since electronic test systems began to be web-based.

 

Blackboard.com allows automatic grading of multiple alternatives. Systems like QUIZIT (Tinoco, Fox & Barnette, 1997), WebCT (WebCT, 2008), ASSYST (Jackson & Usher, 1997) and PILOT are samples of web-based systems with capability of electronic assessment and grading. According to Lei (2006), recent examples present an electronic web-based assessment system that applies Bloom’s classification to assess the results of learners and the educational process within the tutors in real time. In an exceedingly step towards a totally automatic information assessment, Guetl (2007) introduced the “e-Examiner” as a tool to aid the assessment approach by mechanically generating, take a look at things for open-ended responses, marking students’ short free text answers and providing feedback.

 

In Nigeria, there are tertiary institutions using the Computer-Based Examination for their assessment and these includes but not limited to University of Ilorin, Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Aliero, Nigerian Open University of Nigeria, etc. Olawale and Shafi’i (2011) explained that these universities are operating in the same way. According to Olawale , Shafi’i and Fluck (2014), the Kebbi State University of Science and Technology (KSUSTA), Aliero approved the use of computers in examinations in February 2010. The use of electronic examination has been compulsory for all 100 level students and for General Studies (GST) courses in the school.

 

The University has also adopted this method of assessment in evaluating students sitting for Post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), remedial and Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB) examinations. The use of computer systems simplifies the whole assessment cycle, including generation, execution, evaluation, presentation as well as archiving. These saves money and time while improving transparency and reliability. Proponents for the Computer-Based Examination argue that it not time-consuming but rather time saving, (McCormack & Jones, 1998; Ryan, Scott, Freeman & Patel, 2000).

 

One of the contenting problems of the use of Computer-Based Examination is technical problems associated with the use of computer to conduct test. Most times, students complain about computer freezing in the course of their assessment, the use of in-built computer calculator which makes it cumbersome for students. Some students are of the opinion that some courses are better with Computer-Based Examination than others. The issue of prior computer skills is also a problem affecting computer based assessment.

 

1.2 Statement of The Problem

Computer-Based Examination (CBE) has been recognized both for its less-time consuming, cost and better performance. But its advantage to the school authority should not be over-emphasized as Hoyle (1986) in Kyoshaba (2009) asserted that schools are set up with the goal of imparting knowledge, understanding as well as skills to those who go through them and behind all this is the idea of improving the student’s academic achievement.

 

It is vital to examine the relationship between this mode of assessment and its effects on students’ performance, because the assumption of comparability between CBE and performance without subjecting it to research process is inappropriate. While electronic problems are rare, they have been known to occur (Chin, 1990), some students reported that they face technical difficulties most times like freezing of computer systems, unable to navigate to the next or previous question, unable to submit their test, power outage during test period and crashing of computer systems. Others complained about difficulty taking calculation-related courses or some specific courses using computers (Jimoh, Shittu & Kawu, 2012), like unable to use the system calculator effectively and the time wasted to start up the calculator. While some students are more concerned about their level of computer familiarity, others students have a general anxiety about the computer itself (John, Cynthia, Judith & Tim, 2002). Others say that they find it difficult to read on computer screen unlike the paper.

 

It therefore remains uncertain whether the problems identified affect Students’ performance in CBE at the Federal University Technology (KSUSTA), Aliero. In this study, an attempt is made to answer the question: What is the relationship between the problems identified on the use of CBE and academic performance of the KSUSTA, Aliero undergraduate students?