The Impact of Item Position in Multiple-choice Test on Student Performance at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) Level

Abstract

The study investigated the impact of item position in multiple-choice test on student performance at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) level in Ghana. The sample consisted of 810 Junior Secondary School (JSS) Form 3 students selected from 12 different schools. A quasi-experimental design was used. The instrument for the project was a multiple-choice test consisting of 40 items in each of English Language, Mathematics and Science. The items were arranged using the difficulty order to obtain the three treatments i.e. Random (RDM), Easy-to-Hard (ETH) and Hard-to-Easy (HTE). The data collected were subjected to statistical analysis using ANOVA at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the analysis indicate that for English Language, Mathematics and Science at the BECE level, when item order was altered, the difference in performance was statistically significant. The study led to the conclusion that the proposition of using re-ordering of items of an objective test to curb examination malpractice may not be the best after all especially in English Language, Mathematics and Science at the BECE level. It was therefore recommended that other methods should be investigated for the purpose.