Evaluation of Lecturers Professional Competency of Students’ Assessment in Tertiary Institutions in Zamfara State

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the lecturers’ assessment competency of learning outcomes in tertiary institutions in Zamfara State. The Survey design was adopted for this study. The population of the study comprised all the 954 academic staff (lecturers/ instructors) in the three (3) Federal Government owned tertiary institutions in Zamfara State, which include Federal University Gusau (FUGUS), Federal College of Education (Technical) Gusau and Federal Polytechnics Kaura Namoda. Federal University Gusau (FUGUS), Federal College of Education (Technical) Gusau and Federal Polytechnics Kaura Namoda have 315, 220 and 419 academic staff respectively. The sample size of the study is 278 academic staff. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select two hundred and seventy-eight (278) academic staff from the three (3) Federal Government owned tertiary institutions in Zamfara State. The instrument used for data collection is a researcher designed questionnaire termed “Lecturers’ Competency of Assessment of Learning Questionnaire (LCALQ)”. The Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics of Analysis of Variance, t-test, Standard Deviation and Weighted Mean. The results showed that lecturers’ professional competence in assessment in Zamfara state tertiary institution are adequate in some aspect of assessment which includes competence in choosing assessment methods appropriate for instructional decisions, administering, scoring, and interpreting the results of assessment methods, using assessment results in making decisions about individual students, developing valid students grading procedures, communicating assessment results to students’ parents and recognizing unethical, illegal, and otherwise inappropriate assessment methods, except in the area of developing assessment methods that is inadequate. It was further concluded that no significant difference exists in the level of competence of male and female lecturers in assessment of students’ outcomes, but revealed significance difference across the three federal own tertiary institutions in Zamfara state. Based on these findings, it was recommended that lecturers in tertiary institution should be train on all the components of assessments practices that will benefit undergraduate students learning outcomes.