DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF INSTRUMENT FOR ASSESSING STUDENTS PRACTICAL PERFORMANCE IN ELECTRONIC WORK IN TECHNICAL COLLEGES

Background to the Study

The major objective of teaching and learning at any level is that teachers/instructors bring about changes in their students.The achievement of this objective is very much dependent on assessment which can be carried out through examinations, tests, interviews, and projects (Bukar, 1994). Based on this premise, Chiejile (2006) mentioned that a simplistic measure of quality of teaching is dependent on how effective and efficient the students carry out the learnt skills at the end of the course or programme of study. In other words, measurement of the learners‟ performance is a function of how well, proper and adequatethe assessment procedures are carried out. Where the opposite is the case, the objective or excellence desired in teaching/learning process may be difficult to achieve.

Any teaching capable of producing an intending result requires competence and commitment. Hence, Akilaiya (2010) opined that the achievement of high quality learning is consequent upon continuousprocess of assessment, although, it is not all the teachers that may have the requisite/ relevant skills as well as in the validity of such assessment. Okoro (2005) stated that any teaching done from a planned lesson must be examined for the achievement of the objective through test or other means of assessment of the students. This is solely, according to Tavakol (2014),to determine the degree or extent to which the objectives at the three domains (cognitive, affective and psychomotor) have been realized; utilizing say workshop environment.

Workshop practice is widely known and has been in use in school workshops as a technique or way of teaching technical subjects. It necessarily follows that, wherever this method of teaching is employed to teach students either in group or otherwise, there is necessity to engage some unique method of assessing such practices or activities (Okorie,1988& Ezeji, 1996). This way, practical work learnt will improve students‟ knowledge of tools and materials as well as develop skill and quality attitudes towards job. Consequent upon the above, the Federal Republic of Nigeria adequately emphasized the importance of practical work in technology education (FRN, 2012), especially at the basic level.

The Federal Government of Nigeria in 1992 established the National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB) under decree 70 of 1993. Its mandate is to promote technical education throughout Nigeria and increase the quality and efficiency of the graduates of technical education systems through the award of national technical certificate (NTC) and advanced national technical certificate (ANTC). Towe (1995) highlighted that NABTEB actually restructured the existing curriculum and developed new one for technical colleges. Towe stated that the aim of the new document include enhancement of flexibility in the production of skilled personnel at all levels. In clear terms, the objective of the technical college programme is that students should be trained to acquire practical knowledge/skills required for their own well-beingand for national development. This simply means that the involvement of students in practical work in other to bring about production of things either single-handedly or in group calls for some measure of assessment. The clarion call on the concerned teacher is to realize the importance of coming up with ways and methods by which valid marks could be awarded in practical skills activities (Chiejile, 2006).

However, the process of practical skill assessmentis not easy as stated by Oranu in Chiejile (2006).The reason advanced for the uneasiness is that such assessment process involves passing value judgment on both tangibles and intangibles. These include those things that have something to do with human factors that are observable but with difficulty and which can be effectively examined by mere paper – and – pen kind of rating in order to determine what the learners are doing and how correctly those things are done.

Accordingly, it is stated that practical work cannot be actually assessed through oral or written examination of the students but such process of assessment need to have tasks to be done practically. Along this line, there is also the need to write out the statement about the degree of accuracy that is necessary in performing the tasks as well as the weighted values for each category of the observable skills. The issue of interest is to really find out if there is any type of assessment that the teachers can use to give a true measure of the skills possessed by the learners and their ability to apply those skills.These technical teachers are of three categories, i.e. those who have B.Sc (Education), HND plus PGDE and FTC plus TTC. Towards this,Leighbody and Kidd (1968), Andrew and Erickson (1976), Brickbanner and Mortenson (1967) pointed out that there is only one type of assessment that the teachers can use to do this and it is called performance assessment. The opinion of these scholars is that such should take the form of process and product assessment using the most relevant criteria and tools. While process assessment is achieved through a close observation and following students all along the stages of the

practical jobs being done, designed, constructed, assembled or fabricated till it is finished in the workshop, product assessment involves assembling already finished projects in the workshop. The achievement of this is contingent upon the ability of the teachers vis-à-vis their number of years of their experience to develop assessmentinstrumentas it is done in planning and implementation of curriculum and also to give their opinions about the rating of such assessment instrument.

Based on the above premises, it follows that students assessment in practical electronic cannot be based on the finished product alone;this is because such assessment would be subjective and therefore prone to abuse by the assessors. To overcome this challenge, researcher like Ezeji (1996), Nitko (2001) and Okoro (1991) have suggested that a very important criterion for objective and reliable assessment of practical works is to construct and use a well-designed performance assessment tool. This suggestion, if carried out ensures that the actual performance or activity of learners determines their progress in a given practical task. This idea will also play down the temptation of judging learners attitudes or personality by assessors. It was in this regard that Gbosi (2004) categorically stated that there is the need for the preparation of valid instruments so that teachers, especially the experienced ones will have the opportunity to generate and work with reliable data which will guide the students and their parents, in technical trades as radio and televisionand electronic. The development of such reliable instrument has three main involvements. These are adoption, adaptation and implementation. According to Okoye (2015), these three main steps are sub-divided into seven processes thus: objectives of the instrument, learning experiences expected to be gained while using the instrument, identification of instrument, formation of contents of instrument, validation of instrument, reliability of instrument and evaluation of instrument. For the purpose of proximity and precision in this study, these seven steps are compounded into four main processes for implementation as follows: determination of tasks, identification of practical skills, validation of the instrument and establishment of instrument reliability.

Radio, television and electronic work are an integral part of the National Technical Certificate (NTC) and Advanced National Technical Certificate (ANTC) curriculum and module specification in radio, television and electronic work.The NTC and ANTC programme curriculum is broadly divided into three components: general education, which accounts for 30% of the total hours required for the programme, trade theory, trade practice and related studies which account for 65%and  supervised industrial training/work experience which accounts for about 5% of the total hour required for the programme. Federal Republic of Nigeria (2012) stated that this component of the course is compulsory for all full time students and may be taken in industry or in college production unit.

The paper also stated that the curriculum should contain the teacher‟s activities and learning resources required for guidance of the teacher.The main objective of the curriculum as succinctly put by Okoye (2015)is to increase the technological growth of the country; but the secondary school and very many technical teachers do not seem to possess adequate competence in the development and validation of instrument to achieve the curriculum objective (Chiejile 2006). These researchers‟ opinions about the need for technological competence of teachers to develop instruments in their subject areas was also corroborated by Okwelle (2014) who asserted that technical college and secondary school teachers do not have the needed skills and competence to develop an instrument to assess the practical performance of electronic students.

However, one serious gap arising out of the review of related research is that no study to the best knowledge of the researcher has specifically dealt with the issues of development and validation of instruments for assessing electronicpractical/tasks in technical colleges. This seems to neglect the much emphasis by Okoro (2005) that a valid and reliable instrument for the assessment of students‟ practical skills or dexterity in electronic tasks is of paramount importance. The need for this present study, therefore, is to device a measure that would assist teachers of electronic, especially in technical colleges, to be able to assess those necessary and component skills that the students in training need to display in the course of performing the practical job in a workshop setting.