Cognitive levels, Task numbers and Facility Indices of Mathematics Multiple Choice Questions in Basic Education Certificate Examination Conducted by National Examination Council in Nigeria

Abstract

The study determined the cognitive levels, task numbers and facility indices of Mathematics Multiple Choice Questions in 2021 Basic Education Certificate Examination administered by National Examination Council in Nigeria. The relationship between pairs of these variables was determined. The questions were administered to a sample of 188 junior secondary school three students selected from 10 secondary schools in Abia State of Nigeria using simple random and stratified random sampling techniques. The facility indices of the items were computed from the responses of the students while the cognitive levels and task numbers of the items were determined by the researcher and two other experts. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance was used to determine the level of agreement of the scorers for cognitive levels and task numbers of the items and a reliability coefficient of .94 and .82 respectively were obtained. Guided by three research questions and three hypotheses, the study adopted a blend of descriptive and correlational research designs. Mean and percentage were used to answer the research questions while Pearson’s product moment correlation analysis was used to test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Results showed that 56.7%, 37.5%, and 5.8% of items in 2021 BECE mathematics questions are testing understanding, application and recall respectively ; that on the average the items require three cognitive steps to arrive at the answer; and that the items are of moderate difficulty with mean facility index of .5804. Furthermore, result indicated significant, moderate and negative relationship between task number and facility index; significant moderate positive relationship between cognitive level and task number and significant low negative relationship between cognitive level and facility index. The study recommends sustenance of the difficulty level of BECE mathematics multiple choice question. It also recommends that task number of MCQ should be considered while allotting scores to the items and hence advocate for unequal assignment of scores in MCQ items.