Ensuring Quality in Education: Validity of Teacher-made Language Tests in Secondary Schools in Ebonyi State

Abstract

The study was carried out to find out the extent that teachers of English in secondary schools in Ebonyi State validate their test items. To guide the study, three research questions were formulated and one null hypothesis was postulated and tested at 0.00 level of significance. The design of the study was the descriptive survey. The population consisted of all the teachers of English in all the government-owned secondary schools in the three education zones of Ebonyi State. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 367 teachers which made up 50% of the entire population as sample. A 22-item researcher-developed questionnaire entitled Test Item Validation Questionnaire (TIVQ) was constructed, validated, trial tested and used to elicit data from the respondents. Data obtained were presented and analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and t-test statistical tool was used to test the hypothesis. The study revealed, amongst other things, that majority of the teachers of English in public secondary schools in Ebonyi State do not validate their test items before administration. The researchers recommended that test item review committees be set up; training programs should be provided for teachers of English and that there should be strenuous supervision of academic activities in secondary schools in Ebonyi State by both internal and external authorities.