DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN ONLINE CBT SOFTWARE FOR ASSESSMENT AND EXAMINATION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF JOS

Abstract

This study was on the Design and Development of an Online CBT Software for Assessment and Examination in the Department of Science and Technology Education, University of Jos. In other to achieve this objective, three specific objectives were raised. In line with these objectives, three research questions were formulated and three hypotheses were posited. This study adopted Research and Development (R&D) design based on the theoretical foundation of Iterative life cycle. The CBT Software was developed as a web application using HTML. CSS, Angular 12, Java 11, Spring boot with Rest API and MySQL. The software was developed and deployed to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) for testing. The estimated population of the study is 3460. The sample size is 110, comprising of 100 students, 6 lecturers, and 4 software developers taken for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The hypotheses were tested using t-test statistic at p<0.05 level of significance. The CBT software was validated and tested and used by students and staff  for taking and computing student examination and assessment, the staff and students rated the CBT software as simple,  flexibile, user friendly, reliable, fast, accurate, consistent, secure, responsive and of good colour quality. Furthermore, the findings on hypotheses tested using t-test statistic at p<0.05 level of significance. The hypotheses revealed that, there is no significant difference in the mean responses of software developer and lecturer on the software requirement specification used in developing the Computer Based Test (CBT); there is no significant difference in the mean responses of software developer and lecturer on the software design that guides the development of the Computer Based Test (CBT); there is no significant difference in the mean responses of male and female student ease of use of the Computer Based Software (CBT). It is recommended that the developed CBT software should be adopted by tertiary institutions and examination especially for courses having large number of students which makes marking and invigilation of exam difficult. This will go a long way to curb examination malpractices amidst student and also help in marking of examination scripts and issues related to missing student’s examination scripts.