Effects of Testwiseness Strategy on the Academic Performance of Senior Secondary School Students in Economics in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of testwiseness on academic performance of Senior Secondary School students in Economics in Oyo State, Nigeria.The study employed quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test two group design. The population for the study comprised all the public Senior Secondary School Two (SSS2) students offering Economics in Oyo State, Nigeria. The sample for the study consisted of 240 senior secondary school Two (SSS2) students using multistage sampling procedure. The instrument for the study were Economics Achievement Test (EAT) and Testwiseness Questionnaire (TQ). Face and content validity of the instrument were established by expert judgment. The reliability coefficient of EAT was estimated using test re-test reliability method while the reliability coefficient of TQ was estimated using Cronbach Alpha reliability method. The reliability coefficients of EAT and TQ were 0.79 and 0.82 respectively. The data collected were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The research questions raised were answered using mean and standard deviation and bar chart while the hypotheses formulated were tested using Student’s t -test and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. Results of the study showed that there was significant difference in the performance of students exposed to testwisness strategy and those in control group. Also, the results showed that there was no significant effect of the testwisness strategy on the performance of the students based on gender and school location. It was, therefore, concluded that students with testwiseness strategy perform better than those without testwiseness strategy and that gender and school location have no significant interactive effect on students’ achievement in Economics when exposed to testwiseness strategy.It was recommended that students should be exposed to testwiseness strategy to improve their performance in Economics irrespective of their gender and school location.