DEVELOPMENT AND STANDARDISATION OF AN INSTRUMENT FOR ASSESSING PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN OXY-ACETYLENE TASK OPERATIONS AT TECHNICAL COLLEGE LEVEL

Abstract

What motivated the study is the observed teachers’ indiscriminate acts in assessing students performance using unacceptable ways. The study is to develop and standardise a unique and unified means of assessing performance of students that teachers could use instead. The study was specifically aimed to develop an instrument for assessing students performance in oxy-acetylene cutting and welding operations at technical college level. The main purpose of the study was to develop and validate an instrument for assessing students performance in oxy-acetylene cutting and welding operations at technical college level. Three  research questions were formulated to guide the study. Instrumentation research design was adopted for the study and the instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire developed by the researcher. The questionnaire was validated by 8 experienced technical teachers in terms of its face, content and construct. Similarly, the instrument  has  reliability coefficient of 0.87  based on Cronbanch’s Alpha statistical tool  used to determine it. The study identified 4 basic tasks associated with  Oxy-acetylene operation practices. The study identified 39 observable skills in assessing students, when  performing Oxy-acetylene operation practices. To determine its validity the developed performance assessment instrument, titled; Instrument for Assessing Performance of Students in Oxy-acetylene Task Operations (IASPOTO), was rated by experts in welding and fabrication  and yielded a validity index of 0.75. The instrument was further trial-tested in 6 technical colleges, using 30 NTC III students. The results obtained from the trial-test was computed using Cronbanch’s   Alpha formula,  which gave a reliability coefficient of 0.92 on the IASPOTO. The result of the study showed that the developed instrument  (IASPOTO ) is valid and reliable. The study therefore recommends among others that, examination bodies like; WAEC, NABTEB, NECO should adopt the use of IASPOTO in assessing students performance, in welding and fabrication trade. It is also recommended that teachers that teach welding and fabrication trade at technical colleges should adopt the use of the IASPOTO when assessing students performance for formative evaluation purposes.