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DEVELOPMENT OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING ACHIEVEMENT TEST FOR

ASSESSMENT OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN IMO STATE

Article · October 2022

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

24
Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

DEVELOPMENT OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING ACHIEVEMENT TEST FOR

ASSESSMENT OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN IMO STATE

Prof. P. M. C. Ogomak
pmcog@hotmail.com

Ukozor, F. L, Ph.D
Fabukozor2000@yahoo.com; 08037216112

&
Oguguo, Basil C. E., Ph.D
ezennadikelechi@yahoo.com; 08034127110
Department of Physical Science Education
Faculty of Education, Imo State University, Owerri.

Abstract
This study developed and standardized a financial accounting
achievement test for assessment of senior secondary school students in
Imo State. The study was an instrumentation research. The population of
the study comprised 1564 senior school students SSS) offering Financial
Accounting in public secondary schools in Imo State during the 2013/2014
session. The sample for the study was 333 SS3 financial accounting
students drawn through multi-stage sampling techniques involving simple
random sampling, cluster sampling and non-proportional stratified random
sampling techniques. The instrument used for data collection was a 200-
items Financial Accounting Achievement Test (FAAT), covering all levels of
the cognitive domain. The internal consistency of the instrument as
determined from Kuder-Richardson formula 20 yielded a coefficient of
0.95. Five research questions guided the study. Research questions 1, 2
and 3 were answered using the three major item characteristics. Question
5 was answered using Kuder-Richardson formula2o. The results of the
data analyzed reveal that FAAT is highly valid and reliable. FAAT could be
used for assessing senior secondary students when they fully cover the
Financial Accounting curriculum. Based on the findings, it was
recommended that Students and their teachers should use the developed
instrument to get prompt feedback on their level of performances in
Financial Accounting, and properly assess their teaching and learning of
the subject.

Key word: Development, Financial Accounting, Item Characteristics,

Achievement Test, Assessment, Secondary School

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

Introduction
Osadebe (2014) observed that one of the greatest causes of students'
failure in the senior secondary schools is that teachers after assuming to
have covered the senior secondary certificate examination (SSCE)
syllabus would resort to assessing students with unreliable achievement
test. According to him, most teachers hurriedly copy past questions
papers to compose their summative achievement tests. As a result,
teachers do not establish the validity and reliability indices for such
tests. The West African Examination council (WAEC) (1992) notes that
one of the major constraints in achieving its objectives is the inability of
teachers to develop the desired test items necessary for assessing the
learners. According to Ubani as cited in Obidegwu (2008), the
performance of learners depends to a large extent on the quality of
training received by teachers in test construction. Okeke as cited in
Obidiegwu (2008) stated that, it is very necessary that educators should
develop valid and reliable instruments which they use in the assessment
of the learners. However, most teachers lack test construction skills and
standardized instruments do not also exist in good numbers for
assessing students. Incidentally, Developments of Financial Accounting
Achievement Test (FAAT), for assessment of students have not been given
adequate attention in Nigeria.
Development of FAAT is necessary in order to monitor areas of
deficiencies of the students, when these areas are identified, appropriate
and remedial steps would be taken towards solving their problems. A
standardized test is any test that is administered and scored in a
consistent manner to ensure legal defensibility
(www.a2zpsychology.com). A standardized test is more valid and reliable
than a teacher made test.
The use of poorly designed Achievement test is a major problem as
it affects students' interest and achievement in a particular subject
(Osadebe, 2014). Onunkwo (2002) observes that most examiners find it
easier to construct test items in the lower cognitive levels (knowledge and
comprehension) than the higher cognitive levels (application, analysis,
synthesis and evaluation) and this points to the fact that most of these
examiners who are teachers in secondary schools have been constructing
test that are not valid.
A standardized achievement test has a broad coverage of the
content of the curriculum and reflects the levels of cognitive domain. It is
valid, reliable and has a specified procedure of administering test and
scoring responses to it. A standardized test usually has norms for
comparison of scores.

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

Over the years, students' performances in ordinary level examinations in

financial accounting have been poor. According to Ogunu (2000) poor
performance of students especially in the public secondary schools have
been attributed to many factors, among which are: lack of test
construction skills by teachers, inadequate instructional facilities and
equipment necessary for the teaching of Financial Accounting. It has
already been pointed out that poorly designed tests could make the
students loose interest in a particular subject including Financial
Accounting (Osadebe, 2014). Similarly, Onunkwo as cited in Osadebe
(2014) observed that most examiners find it easier to construct test items
in the lower cognitive levels (knowledge and comprehension) than the
higher cognitive levels (application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation)
points to the fact that most of these examiners who are teachers have
been constructing tests that are not highly valid. Since standardized
FAATs are very scarce to the best of the researcher's knowledge, there is
need to develop a multiple choice FAAT. This is the task of this study.
The main purpose of the study is to construct and standardize a reliable
achievement test in Financial Accounting for students. Specifically, the
study sought to:

1. construct multiple choice test items.

2. determine the facility Indices of the items
3. determine the distracter indices of the items
4. determine the discrimination indices of the items
5. determine the content validity for the FAAT
6. determine the reliability of the FAAT

To achieve this aim the following research questions were state.

1. What is the distribution of the acceptable ranges of facility indices
of the items of the FAAT?
2. What is the distribution of the acceptable ranges of discrimination
indices of the items of the FAAT?
3. What is the distribution of the acceptable ranges of distracter
indices of the items of the FAAT?
4. What is the distribution of FAAT items in terms of the levels of
cognitive objectives covered by the test?
5. What is the final reliability index (through the K-R20) of FAAT?

Method
The study is an instrumentation research design. The population of the
study comprise all the senior secondary school students (SSS) offering
Financial Accounting in public secondary schools in Imo State with a

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

total population of 1564. The sample of this study consisted of 533

senior secondary school students offering financial accounting in the six
education zones of Imo State. The sample was composed through a
multi-stage sampling techniques involving cluster sampling, simple
random sampling and non-proportional stratified sampling techniques.
The Financial Accounting Achievement test (FAAT) was used for
data collection. The researcher developed 200 items in all levels of the
cognitive domain. This was selected from the initial 213 items that were
generated based on the Financial Accounting Syllabus. The items of the
instrument covered the entire Senior Secondary Financial Accounting
curriculum. The face and content validation of the test items were
conducted by three (3) experts. Two (2) in measurement and evaluation,
and one (1) financial accounting teacher. Their recommendations in
terms of levels of difficulty of each item, clarity of words and plausibility
of the distracters were strictly adhered to. The draft instrument was
administered :o students who are not part of the sample. The trial testing
involved 100 financial accounting students, selected from two rural and
two urban schools. The reliability of the test instrument * as determined
through kuder Richardson formula20 (K-R2o) and it was found to be
0.95.
Research questions 1, 2 and 3 were answered using the three
major statistical properties (facility index, discrimination index and
distracter index); research question 5 was answered using Kuder
Richardson formula 20.
27

Results
Table 1: Distribution of Ranges of facility Indices of the FAAT
Ranges of Facility Indices
Low Good High
Distribution 0.0 - 0.29 0.30-0.70 0.71-1.00 Total
No. of Items 79 119 2 200

The data analysis in table 1 shows that the acceptable ranges of facility
indices of the items of the FAAT lie between 0.30 to 0.70, items numbers
8 and 12 have the greatest value (0.75) and item number 61 has the
least value (0.05). Based on the acceptable values of facility indices, 119
items of the FAAT were found to have good facility indices because they
fell within the acceptable range. Two items have high difficulty indices

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

while 79 items have items that are not acceptable (low difficulty indices).
Therefore FAAT has 119 items in terms of acceptable facility indices.

Table 2: Distribution of Acceptable Ranges of Discrimination Indices of

the FAAT Ranges of Discrimination Indices

Negative Low Boarderline Moderate High

Distribution (0.1)-(0.01) 0.00-0.19 0.20-0.29 0.30-0.49 0.50-1.00 Total
No of Items 19 43 33 67 38 200

The result of the discrimination index analysis on table 2 reveals that the
acceptable ranges of discrimination indices of the items of the FAAT
varies from 0.20 to 0.81. Thirty eight items discriminated highly, sixty
seven items have moderate positive discrimination, thirty three items
have boarder line positive discrimination, and forty three items have low
discrimination indices while nineteen items have negative discrimination
indices. Item 42 have the greatest discrimination power 0.81 and items
30, 53, and 197 have the least discrimination power 0.01. Based on the
acceptable values of discrimination indices, about 62 items have items
that are not acceptable. Therefore FAAT has 138 items in terms of
acceptable discrimination indices.

Table 3: Distribution of Acceptable Ranges of Distracter Indices of the FAAT

Distractor index analyses shows that FAAT have good distracter indices
because they fell within the acceptable range of 0.01 to 0.93. One
hundred and ninety three (193) items have effective distractors, seven (7)
items were found to have ineffective distractors. The FAAT items were
suitable for use in evaluating senior secondary student’s achievement in
financial accounting

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

Table 4 shows the distribution of the financial accounting achievement

test items in terms of the levels of cognitive objectives covered by the test.
The result indicates that all the objectives and content areas were well
covered. The distribution of items to the objectives and content areas are
enough evidence that the FAAT has a high content validity. The face
validity was also considered appropriate during the expert's judgment.

Table 5 shows that the FAAT is highly reliable with a reliability estimate
of 0.95. This helped to establish the internal consistency of the FAAT.
Since the reliability co-efficient is high and the standard error of
measurement is low (6.7) and this confirmed that the Financial
Accounting Achievement Test is highly reliable. This further shows that
the mean score of the students is 71.68 and a standard deviation of
30.19.

Discussions
Financial accounting achievement test was constructed to evaluate the
cognitive aspect of the students. The item analysis conducted in this
study implicates three statistics to assists in analyzing the effectiveness

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

of each of the FAAT questions specifically item facility, item

discrimination and distractor analysis.
Item facility lends a hand in distinguishing easy item from difficult
ones. In general, there is a good distribution of difficulty throughout the
test. The facility indices of many of the developed instrument fell within
the acceptable range of values as shown in Table 1. Analysis of item
difficulty on 200 items of the FAAT denotes that 59.5% of the test items
were in the good/moderate level of difficulty. Only 1% of the total test
item possess difficulty index of over 0.71, while 39.5% of the test items
possess low level difficulty index. This study is in agreement with
Obidiegwu (2008), Onunkwo (2002), and Nwana (2007) that an item of
between 30 percent to 70 percent level could be allowed in an
achievement test. Mitra (2009) reported that 40% of the multiple choice
questions of pre-clinical semester 1 multidisciplinary summative tests
had the difficulty level over 0.8. In the meantime, Sim and Rasiah (2006)
in a study analyzing year two examinations of a medical school found
that 40% of the multiple choice question (MCQ) surpassed the difficulty
level of 0.7. 20% of the items with difficulty level of 0.20 and over were
classified as easy items with three questions acquires difficulty index of
1.0 and only 2% were determined to be difficult questions. Instructional
Assessments Resources (IAR) (2011) insinuates the usage of easy
question as warm up questions in assessing student mastery. The items
that were classified as difficult items ought to be reconsidered in terms of
language and content appropriateness. A low value of difficulty index
may possibly indicate a miskeyed item. Additionally, it may also indicate
that the tested topic were inappropriate. In spite of this, difficult
questions which results in frustration for some students function as
challenge among the top student as evokes by Schreyer Institute for
Teaching Excellence (2013).
The ranges of discrimination indices lie between 0.20 to 0.81. This
is in line with the recommendations of first as cited in Onunkwo (2002).
In general, a total of 138 items (69% of the total FAAT items) can be
categorized as acceptable with discrimination index of over 0.20.
Inspection on results of the item discrimination analysis discloses a good
number of items with very good discriminating power. 19% of the items
regarded as very good items, with a discrimination index of over 0.50.
The overall discriminatory accomplishments of the FAAT were
satisfactory. A total of 21.5% (43 items) of the total items were classified
as poor discriminating items (less than 0.20) with nineteen items (9.5%)
with negative discrimination coefficient. This finding was similar to a
study conducted by El-Uri and Malas (2013) to analyze undergraduate
examination in obstetrics and gynaecology, who reported that 38% of the

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

test items had the discrimination coefficient less than 0.2 with 23
questions obtained negative discrimination. Items with poor and negative
discrimination coefficient should be highlighted for reviewing purpose. A
poor discriminating power might signify confusing items which were
ambiguously worded or indicates a miskeyed item. Ultimately, items with
negative coefficient should be removed from the FAAT. Sim and Rasiah
(2006) and Matloct-Hetzel (1997) coincide in the reasoning of the
negative value. They proposed that student in the low achievement group
often make a guess in answering the easy question and by chance come
up with the correct answer. Contradictory, students in the upper
achievement group embark upon the easy question too vigilantly and end
up choosing the wrong answer. Items with negative discrimination
coefficient should be eliminated from the test as put forward by El-Uri
and Malas (2013) and Ovwigho (2013). The reason is that item with
negative discrimination coefficient indicates students with low score got
the item right and students with high score answer the item incorrectly.
A distractor analysis assists in distinguishing plausible distractors
from implausible ones. Distractor index analyses shows that FAAT have
good distracter indices because they fell within the acceptable range of
0.01 to 0.93. One hundred and ninety three (193) items representing
96.5% have effective distractors, seven (7) items were found to have
ineffective distractors. The FAAT items were suitable for use in evaluating
senior secondary student's achievement in financial accounting.
The developed instrument is valid enough to be used to measure
students competence in Financial Accounting. The result shows a very
good distribution of the Financial Account Achievement Test items. The
result indicates that all the objectives and content areas were well
covered in the table of specifications. The distribution of items to the
objectives and content areas are enough evidence that the FAAT has a
high content validity. The face validity was also considered appropriate
during the expert judgment.
In the process of establishing the quality of the test as a whole, the
formula developed by Kuder-Richardson was used to compute the
reliability of the test. The computed KR20 of 0.95 of the FAAT which
appear to be satisfactory indicate that this test is a reasonably reliable
instrument in producing consistent scores. Similarly, Lin, Tseng and Wu
(1999) while doing item analysis on multiple choice test items in the
Registered Nurse Licensure Exam reported a KR 2o value range 0.86 to
0.94 in the analysis of internal-consistency. This help to establish the
internal consistency of the Financial Accounting Achievement Test. This
result shows that the FAAT is highly reliable and could be used for
assessing senior secondary students when they fully cover the Financial

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

Accounting curriculum. The use of K-R20 in this study was appropriate

as the items are scored dichotomously (Osadebe, 2013). The reliability
estimate of this study (0.95) is appropriate as recommended by Wolansky
and cited in Obidiegwu (2008) that the acceptable reliability index of
critically refined test is generally in the range of 0.80 to 0.95. The
Financial Accounting Achievement Test is therefore a reliable instrument.
This is in line with Thorndike as cited in Osadebe (2014) who pointed out
that a measure is very reliable as r resented by a low standard error of
measurement.

Suggestions
Based on the findings of this study, the following suggestions were made.
1. Student and their teachers should use the developed instrument to
get prompt feedback on their competence in Financial Accounting,
so that they are able to identify areas where they may need
remediation.
2. FAAT is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing students in
Financial Accounting. It should be used for both formative and
summative evaluation of students in senior secondary schools.
3. Researchers could also use the procedure used to develop the test
instrument as a model for the development and validation of other
similar assessment instruments.
4. Educators should construct tests to involve areas of affective and
psychomotor domains of educational objectives. This will help to
determine the extent of students' achievement and updated their
knowledge in different subject areas.
5. FAAT could be used to obtain the profile of students as well as
areas of deficiencies in Financial Accounting

Conclusion
The main aim of this study was to develop and standardize a test
instrument for assessing senior secondary school student's academic
achievement in Financial Accounting. Results of the study disclose that
FAAT items with good discrimination coefficient have a tendency to befall
in the range from difficult item to easy item. Alternatively, items with
negative discrimination demonstrate difficulty ranging from moderately
difficult to high difficult range. Item analysis alleviates test developer in
developing an ideal achievement test which .functions as tools to
evaluate learner's progress and instructional quality in teaching and
learning among students in public schools. This study contributed to
education under the research and development category, which is
described as research that is directed at the development of effective

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Nigerian Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation

products that can be used in schools. The results of the study show that
the test characteristics of the developed instrument fall within the
acceptable ranges of values. This suggests that the developed test
instrument is valid and reliable enough to be used to assess students in
senior secondary schools in Imo State.

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