Challenges and opportunities in the use of e-assessment in physics as perceived by physics teachers in Umuahia north local government area of Abia State

Abstract

The growth of technology in Nigeria’s economy has made Information and Communication Technologies a very important concept in education. The impact of ICT in education can be seen in the improvement of the learning process and environment. A descriptive survey design was employed to assess the opportunities and challenges encountered in assessing Physics students with E-assessment. The population of the study is 104 secondary school Physics teachers in Umuahia North Local Government Area of Umuahia Education Zone of Abia State. Out of this population, 50 (18 males, 32 females) formed the sample of the study using purposive sampling technique to sample only teachers that use E-assessment to assess their Physics students. The researcher’ developed questionnaire of the four-point rating scale type was used as the instrument for data collection to elicit information on the opportunities and challenges of using E-assessment in assessing secondary school Physics students. The study was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. The instrument was validated and its reliability obtained as 0.89 and 0.83 using Test Retest and Cronbach Alpha respectively. Mean was used to answer the research questions while t test statistics was used to test the hypotheses. The study among others revealed that provision of friendly learning environment, immediate feedback, and students’ flexibility in learning are some of the opportunities of using E-assessment to assess Physics students while poor technical infrastructure and unfamiliar students with computer are some of the challenges. It was recommended that Physics teachers be trained on how to use e-assessment to assess students to enable them use them in the physics/science classrooms and that students should be trained to be conversant with the use of e-assessment.