Assessment of Items Prone to Guessing in SSCE Economics Multiple-Choice Tests among Students in Kwara State, Nigeria

Oct 15, 2026

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The study investigated test items prone to guessing in Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) Economics multiple-choice tests among students in Kwara State, Nigeria. WASSCE 2016 and NECO Economics multiple-choice items were analyzed using guessing parameters computed with WinGen IRT software. The research used a descriptive survey design with 768 Senior School III students sampled across 25 public schools and tested hypotheses with chi-square at 0.05. Findings showed comparable guessing-prone item rates and no significant difference between WASSCE and NECO.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Test and assessment context in Nigeria

Multiple-choice tests and scoring

Item classification and guessing

Anatolian Journal of Education e-ISSN: 2547-9652 April 2020 ● Vol.5, No.1 [www.e-aje.net](www.e-aje.net)[ ](www.e-aje.net)pp. 17-28 Assessment of Items Prone to Guessing in SSCE Economics Multiple-Choice Tests among Students in Kwara State, Nigeria Mohammed Idris Jimoh PhD., University ofIlorin, Ilorin, [Nigeria](Nigeria jimoh.mi@unilorin.edu.ng)[ jimoh.mi@unilorin.edu.ng](Nigeria jimoh.mi@unilorin.edu.ng) Dorcas Sola Daramola PhD., University ofIlorin, Ilorin, Nigeria, [olatunji.ds@unilorin.edu.ng](olatunji.ds@unilorin.edu.ng) Jumoke Iyabode Oladele PhD., University ofIlorin, Ilorin, Nigeria, [oladele.ji@unilorin.edu.ng](oladele.ji@unilorin.edu.ng) Adaramaja Lukman Sheu PhD., Federal University Gusau, Zamfara State, Nigeria, [adaramaja4real@yahoo.com](adaramaja4real@yahoo.com) The study investigated items that were prone to guessing in Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) Economics multiple-choice tests among students in Kwara State, Nigeria. The 2016 West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) and National Examinations Council (NECO) Economics multiple-choice test items were subjected to guessing parameters. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design, carried out in 25 randomly selected public Senior Secondary Schools in Kwara State. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to sample 768 Senior School III students. The instruments used for data collection were 2016 WASSCE and NECO multiple-choice Economics items. Guessing parameter was computed using WinGen IRT software package used to compute and answer research question 2 (What are those 2016 WASSCE and NECO Economics multiple-choice test items prone to guessing?) . The hypothesis was tested using the chi-square statistic at 0.05 level of significance. One of the findings revealed that items prone to guessing in WASSCE and NECO were of the same rate. The finding also revealed that no significant difference existed in items guessed in WASSCE and NECO. One of the recommendations revealed that the classroom teachers and professional developers should avoid clauses such as “except”, all of the above”, “none of the above” and“not” to mention a few. This could reduce the guessing tendency in multiple-choice items. Keywords: guessing, senior school certificate examination economics, multiple-choice tests, senior secondary students INTRODUCTION Test consists of a set of uniform questions or tasks to which a student is to respond to independently and the result can be treated to provide a quantitative comparison of the performance among different test takers Obinne (2011) . It is one of the indispensable measurement tools to assess educational outcomes. It is a tool for gauging knowledge of an individual learner in order to determine the ability of that individuals. It is one of the assessment techniques used to elicit students’ behaviour with a view of making some inferences about a specific attribute of the test taker (Abiri, 2007) . Test can be categorized into internal (teacher made) and external (public) test. In this study emphasis is placed on Citation: Jimoh, M. I., Daramola, D. S., Oladele, J. I., & Sheu, A. L. (2020). Assessment of Items Prone to Guessing in SSCE Economics Multiple-Choice Tests among Students in Kwara State, Nigeria. Anatolian Journal of Education, 5(1), 17-28. [https://doi.org/10.29333/aje.2020.512a](https://doi.org/10.29333/aje.2020.512a) 18 Assessment of Items Prone to Guessing in SSCE Economics … public test in Nigeria such as Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) . It places value judgment on the achievement of individual candidate at the end of their. In Nigeria, at the Senior Secondary level, there are public examinations such as the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations WASSCE), National Examinations Council (NECO) and National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB)that are expected to conduct credible examinations, better test scores and

FAQs

What was the purpose of this study on SSCE Economics multiple-choice tests?

To examine which Economics test items were prone to guessing among students in Kwara State, Nigeria.

Which datasets and software were used to evaluate guessing-prone items?

The study analyzed 2016 WASSCE and NECO Economics multiple-choice items, and computed guessing parameters using WinGen IRT software.

What did the study find when comparing guessing-prone items between WASSCE and NECO?

The findings indicated the guessing-prone item rates were the same and there was no significant difference between the two exam bodies.

Oct 15, 2026

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