Comparism of Item Difficulty and Discrimination of Pre And Post University Entrance Examinations in Nigeria

Year 2021, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 1 - 9, 01.01.2021

Adamu Chidubem Deborah Babatimehin Temitope Adeoye Oluseyi Peter

Abstract

The study compared the difficulty and discrimination indices of the Pre-University Tertiary Matriculation
Examination (Pre-UTME) and Post-University Tertiary Matriculation Examination (Post-UTME) in the related
subject areas of Arts, Commercial and Science in Obafemi Awolowo University (O.A.U.), Ile-Ife, Nigeria. The study
adopted the exploratory survey research design. The population for the study comprised all part one
undergraduate students of the O.A.U., Ile-Ife in 2013/2014 session. While simple random sampling technique was
used to select 40 departments, convenience sampling technique was used in drawing 20 part one undergraduate
students from each of the 40 departments. A 20-item achievement test titled: 2013/2014 Pre-UTME and its
corresponding 2013/2014 O.A.U. Post-UTME were instruments used for collecting data for this study. Data
collected were subjected to item analysis. Results revealed that the items of the O.A.U.’s 2013/2014 in the subject
areas of Arts, Commercial and Science (with average difficulty indices, p, of 0.53, 0.46 and 0.55 respectively) were
more difficult than items of the 2013/2014 Pre-UTME in the same subject areas (having average p of 0.62, 0.54 and
0.60 respectively). Finally, the results revealed that the items of the 2013/2014 Pre-UTME and O.A.U.’s Post-UTME
in the subject areas of Arts, Commercial and Science discriminated appropriately between students in the high
scoring group and those in the low scoring group with average discrimination indices of 0.45, 0.43, 0.46 and 0.46,
0.43, 0.42 respectively.

Keywords

Item difficulty, item discrimination, jamb, pre-Utme and post- Utme

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