RELATIVE ACHIEVEMENT OF STUDENTS ON DIFFERENT ECONOMICS TEST ITEM FORMATS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

The study examined the relative achievement of students on different Economics test item formats in Secondary schools in Nnewi Education Zone of Anambra State. The study was motivated by poor achievement of students in Economics in the study area. Five research questions and five hypotheses guided the study. To carry out the study, a causal comparative research design was used. The population of the study was 2,380 SS2 students from 49 government secondary schools in Nnewi Education zone. The sample for the study was 368 SS2 Economics students comprising of 141 males and 227 females. Economics achievement test (EAT) was used as the instrument for data collection. The instrument was made up of four sections (A, B, C and D).Section A is multiple choice format, Section B Fill-in test format, Section C Matching test format and Section D Essay test format. The items in the different sections of the instrument were developed from the same content, only the format changed. The EAT had a reliability of; 0.75, 0.66, 0.63, and 0.72 for multiple choice, Fill-in, Matching and Essay test item formats respectively. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using one way-Analysis of variance. Scheffe test was also done for step-wise comparison of the means. The findings of the study revealed a significant difference in the mean achievement scores of students in multiple choice, fill-in, matching and essay test item formats and multiple choice contributed the higher mean. Results also revealed statistically significant difference in the mean achievement of male and female students in favor of male in multiple choice, fill-in and matching test item format but favour female in Essay test item format. It was concluded that test item format influences academic achievement of student in economics.