Content Validity of West African Examination Council Financial Accounting Questions

Abstract

The study sought to ascertain the content validity of West African Examination Council Multiple-Choice Test Items in Financial Accounting from 2016-2018. The researchers assessed how spread taxonomically the content of the core curriculum in the WASSCE Financial Accounting questions were. The population of the study included all the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) multiple-choice question papers in Financial Accounting set by the Council. The sample covered multiple-choice test items from 2016-2018. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The Financial Accounting curriculum and the WASSCE Financial Accounting questions were the main instruments used for data collection. A total of 150 WASSCE objective questions papers were categorized in line with the various cognitive levels. The results revealed that some topics were overemphasized while others were underemphasized. Some topics like introduction to accounting were ignored. The spread of the questions to different cognitive levels did not comply with the required standard; therefore, the WASSCE questions within the period have low content validity. The curriculum should from time-to-time be scrutinized alongside the WASSCE syllabus in order to make the two agree in both content and objectives. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.19.6.10