ASSESSMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS SCIENCE TEACHERS' EXPERIENCE, PROFESSION AND GENDER INFLUENCE ON KNOWLEDGE OF TESTS CONSTRUCTION PROCEDURES IN HONG LOCAL GOVERNMENT, ADAMAWA STATE

The study assesses secondary schools science teachers’ experience, profession and gender on knowledge of test construction procedures in Hong local government area, Adamawa State. The problem of the study was students’ poor performance in both internal and external examinations such as end of term and Senior Schools Certificate Examinations. The main objective of the study was to investigate the knowledge of test construction procedures among science teachers’ senior secondary schools in the study area. Three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study, and the hypotheses were tested using T-test at 0.05 level of significance. The research adopted survey research design. 83 subjects consisted of 52 males and 31 females selected from 832 science teachers in senior secondary schools participated for data collection. A structured questionnaire which is a 4-points Likert type scale was used as research instrument for the study. A trial test was conducted in order to validate the instrument and to find the reliability index. A reliability index of 0.75 was obtained using Cronbach alpha through SPSS. The result revealed that trained science teachers display more knowledge of test construction procedures in senior secondary schools than untrained teachers in Hong local government area, Adamawa State. It was also discovered that the experience science teachers had a good knowledge of test construction processes in senior secondary schools unlike the inexperience ones in the study area. On the gender differences, this current study found out that the male and female science teachers’ knowledge on test construction in senior secondary schools in Hong local government area were at the same level. Therefore, it is recommended that re-training, workshops, conferences and seminars should be organized for science teachers regularly that they will be aware of test construction procedures. This will expose the students on good test items which the students may encounter during their external examinations; which subsequently prepare them to further their education in higher institutions of learning