Validity and Reliability of Senior Secondary School Class 2 Unified Promotion Examination in Mathematics in Ondo State, Nigeria

Despite the importance of Mathematics to sustainable national development, there has been a repeated poor performance of secondary school students in the subject in Ondo state, Nigeria. The assumption of this researcher is that the psychometric properties of Unified Promotion Examination (UPE) used to promote these students to certificate class were not properly ascertained. This study sought to ascertain the validity and reliability of the UPE Mathematics objective items between 2017 and 2018. Two research questions were raised and two hypotheses formulated. The study was anchored on descriptive survey research design. The population consisted of all public senior secondary school class two (SSS2) students for 2017 and 2018. Nine hundred (900) SSS2 students constituted the sample. Multistage and stratified random sampling techniques were used to choose the sample. The research instrument that was used for data collection was the Optical Magnetic Reader (OMR) sheets. Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings showed that: (i) out of 21 Mathematics topics in SSS2 curriculum, there were variations in the number of questions set in 14 (66.7%) topics for 2017 and 11(52.4%) topics for 2018 compared to the number of questions expected to be set. The trend of these variations was the same for the two years (Chi-sq cal = 6.52, Chi-sq cri = 31.41, P>0.05). (ii) the reliability coefficients (r=0.678, and r =0.765) of Ondo State UPE Mathematics objective items for the two years, although moderately good but there was a significant difference in the reliability coefficients (Z-cal = 2.84, Z-cri = 1.96). Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that the UPE Mathematics objective items lacks content validity, although reliable, but not comparable over time. It was recommended among others that the psychometric properties of the Ondo State UPE in Mathematics should be ensured before final administration.