DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF INSTRUMENT FOR ASSESSING STUDENTS’ PRACTICAL SKILLS IN SUSPENSION SYSTEM IN NORTH-EAST NIGERIA
Keywords:
Assessment Instrument, suspension system, practical skills, motor vehicle mechanic workAbstract
The study aimed to develop and validate an instrument for Assessing Students’ Practical Skills in Suspension System (IASPSSS) at Technical Colleges in North East-Nigeria. Five purposes and five research questions guided the study. The study employed an instrumentation research design. The population of the study consisted of 556 respondents, including 58 motor vehicle mechanics work (MVMW) teachers and 498 National Technical Certificate (NTC) III MVMW students. Five experts validated and five MVMW teachers rated the instrument. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 60 NTC III MVMW students from the six sampled school. All the 14 MVMW teachers in the sampled schools were used as an assessors. The data generated were analyzed using Mean and Standard Deviation., and Factor Analysis was conducted for construct validation. Reliability of the instrument was determine using Cronbach Alpha. The respondents agreed that all the four identified task areas on suspension system existed in NBTE NTC curriculum with an average cumulative mean of 3.99 and standard deviation of 0.69, indicating a high level of agreement. The 34 students’ practical skills items were rated as "Appropriate," with an overall cumulative mean of 4.09 and standard deviation of 0.67, indicating a high level of agreement among the respondents. Factor analysis was performed to validate the IASPSSS and it confirmed four major task skills areas accounted 92.12% of the total variance explained, with eigenvalues for these skill areas exceeding 1. These findings meet the required criteria, thereby confirming the validity of the instrument. Likewise, the instrument demonstrated high reliability, with a Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.99 based on the scores of 60 students rated by 14 teachers. It was therefore recommended for adoption for NABTEB, WAEC, and NECO for certification and use by MVMW teachers in Technical Colleges.
