DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF FURNITURE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION ACHIEVEMENT TEST FOR NATIONAL TECHNICAL CERTIFICATE I STUDENTS IN SOUTH EAST NIGERIA

Abstract

This study developed and validated Furniture Design and Construction Achievement Test (FDCAT) for accessing National Technical Certificate (NTC1) students’ achievement in Furniture Design and Construction. The study was guided by four research questions. 30 NTC1 students of Furniture Design and Construction from a Delta State Technical College were used for pilot test. The population for the study was made up of 558 Furniture Design and Construction NTC1 students of technical colleges in south-east geopolitical zone of Nigeria in 2023/2024 academic session. Due to the narrowness of the population, the entire population was utilized and sampling was absent. 545 NTC1 students were used to subject initial pool of 104 objective test items for the test try-out that yielded the data for item analysis. 80 items with psychometric properties in terms of item difficulty indices ranged from 0.30-0.70, discrimination indices of +0.30-1.00 and positive distracter indices were obtained after the item analysis. The instrument developed and validated was Furniture Design and Construction Achievement Test (FDCAT) for NTCI. The content structure and internal consistency estimate of the instrument were established. The internal consistency estimate (reliability) was found to be 0.77 based on Kudder-Richardson formula 21 (KR – 21) method of estimating reliability. The results of the study revealed that the developed FDCAT instrument has moderate Psychometric properties in terms of difficulty, discrimination and distracter indices. Based on these findings, the researcher recommended, that Government at all level should adopt the instrument for accessing the achievement of NTC1 students of technical colleges in Furniture Design and Construction. Also, since the FDCAT developed consists of items of varying degrees of difficulty, discrimination and distracter indices, it should be accepted as appropriate for future use. Having developed Furniture Design and Construction Achievement Test (FDCAT) with moderate psychometric features, this study recommends that it should be adopted by State Ministries of Education and used by teachers of Furniture Design and Construction instruction.