APPLICATION OF ITEM RESPONSE THEORY ANALYSIS ON NIGERIA AIR-FORCE SECONDARY SCHOOLS' JOINT PROMOTION EXAMINATION IN ECONOMICS

Abstract

The study examined the application of item response theory analysis on Nigeria Air-force Secondary Schools' Joint Promotion Examination in economics. The study raised three research questions and formulated two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance to guide the study. The study employed descriptive survey research design. Survey design is a descriptive study which seeks to describe and document what exists, with the purpose of generalizing the results on the whole population. The population of the study was 1,035 SS II students' scripts for 2018 economics Joint Promotion Examination (JPE) from eleven (11) Airforce Secondary Schools in Nigeria. The study used purposive sampling techniques to sample two Airforce Secondary Schools from Lagos and Kano, sample size of 200 Students. The two study instruments were Joint Promotion Examination (JPE) question papers and Answers Scripts of Students for the year 2018 academic session. Content validity of instrument with Kendall's coefficient of concordance value of 0.75 and had Internal consistency reliability coefficient of the EAT was established with Kuder-Richardson formula (K-R20) was 0.83. The collected data were analyzed with x-caliber 4 software for item analysis. The results shows that 45(90%) of the 50 items fitted the three- parameter logistic model of the item response theory. The study recommends that organization should dropped question items 38 and 47 due to their biased nature, since the presence of DIF affects the validity of an item.