Grace Cbibiko ooonna, Ph.D. Universily 0/ Nigeria

Transcription

1 213 Region 11Forum Vol. 1 No.1 J"" EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE: A CHALLENGE TO EDUCATION IN NIGERIA ABSTRACT Grace Cbibiko ooonna, Ph.D. Universily 0/ Nigeria The occurrence of examination malpractices at any level of education in any country poses the greatest threat to the validity and reliability of any examination and consequently to the authenticity of the certificates thereby issued. It is therefore the focus of this paper to discuss the irregular behaviours exhibited by candidates or persons charged with the conduct of examination in or outside the examination hall before, during or after such examination which contravene the regulations governing the administration of the examination. Such irregularities include examination leakage, impersonation, cheating, collusion and swopping of scripts, smuggling of answer scripts into examination balls, and results/certificate forgery. The techniques applied by defaulters are discussed and the implications on the academic and moral standards explained. Based on the issues raised above the "Read ahead" are identified which include: constructing tests to beat examination malpractice, provision of adequate and appropriate examination hall, effective teaching, de-emphasis on certificates, use of matrix sampling. These methods would help to drastically reduce or entirely eradicate examination malpractice, thereby improving the predictive values of examination performances of candidates. The feedback will contribute a great deal to the planning of different curricula in Nigeria. INTRODUCTION Examination is a means of evaluating the achievements of curricula objectives. It is an integral part of teaching-learning process because after teaching, there'is need, to examine the learners to find out how well they have learnt the content. lbeir performance provides a kind of feedback on the teacher's competence, the instructioaal materials and techniques applied by the teachers and also the evaluation procedure. This is why examination is part and parcel of the entire curriculum at different levels of education. That is why Nwana, 1979:2) wrote that "no matter how efficient dieteacher, how intelligent the pupils, how adequate the audio-visual equipment, if no provision is made for some evaluation of progress, the teaching effort may be completely invalidated". There is a "relationship between the objectives, the content add illstructional techniques and evaluation. Teaching and evaluation should be seen as complementary activities for the teacher and the learner. To support this Onotume (1972:1) wrote that"...effective teaching and learning require that the learners should know how he is doing and when he has arrived at the destination of his course". This is achieved through examination. / One may ask whether our educational system can do without examination? AliSubel (1968) provides the answer to this question by pointing out the salutary effects of examination on the learner, teacher and the curriculum. He points out that the f~back; got from examination provides information to both the learner and the teacher,

2 214 Grace Chiblko OJJorma so that they both work towards closing the existing gaps in the teaching learning process. It is also used to diagnose the learners' difficulties and also to predict their future behaviour in a given curriculum. Examination is used to validate existing courses and also to assess attainment for which certificates, diplomas or degrees may be awarded. From the above it is evident that examination is important. Some people believe that examinations have diverted teaching from i~ main objective of inculcating knowledge to the learner because teachers mainly aim at 'presenting candidates who can perform well in their examination by gearing the class work towards the examination syllabus. Iyewanm (1979) and Ufot (1980) agree that the school system is examination conscious. One is tempted to say that we have no educational system but examination system. The focus of this paper is therefore to highlight type8 of examination malpractice and ways of curbing them so as to make the certificates awarded to the learners valid and reliable. Types or Examination Malpractice Before delving into types of examination malpractice, it is important that we explain the term "examination malpractice". Imogie (1972:2) simply defines it as "any wrong doing before, during or after any examination". Such a wrong doing may be engaged in by the students, or candidates, invigilators, examiners, supervisors, printers or any person who is directly or indirectly involved in such an examination. It can be said to be an improper practice in any examination the purpose of which is to obtain good result through fraudulent practice. From the West African Examination Council's perspective, it can be seen as any irregular behaviour exhibited by the examinees or any person in charge of the administration of the examination in or outside the examination hall, before, during or after such examination. Such behaviour must be such as to contravene the roles and regulations governing the conduct ofsuch examination (Oluyeba and Daramola, 1972). The West African Examinations Council categorises examination malpractice into two major classes: leakages and irregularities. Leakages occur when the examinees have fore-knowledge of the examination items before the actual examination date or before it begins. This could be caused deliberately or un-intentionally through carelessness or neglect. Irregularities are the various techniques used by candidates to default during the examinations. There are various types of irregularities. 1. Impersonation This occurs when someone gets another person to write the examination for him. It is commonly practised when external candidates whose identities are not easily ascertained, are enroued to write the examination with the regular (internal) students. 2. Bringing the extraneou materials into the examination hall This method is practised by both boys and girls. For the girls, they apply the "sanitary pad" method. Whereby they hide pre-notes on suspected questions in their sanitary pad and wear it to the examination hall. When they are not being observed, they bring them out and copy. Some write the notes on their laps especially formulae and copy them when the invigilator is inattentive. In institutions of higher learning, they are termed "body writing" or "tattoo-. Some candidates construct false pockets under their lockers used as examination tables and stock these pockets with notes they feel will be

3 Examination Malpraeti06 of use to them during the examination. Some boys bide prepared notes under their socks and they take them out when the examination is in progress. Yet others use "bullets" or "Missiles". These are small pieces of paper on which notes are nlide or major ideas on topics are summarised. When the candidates are not discovered during the examination and the mission is accomplished" it means that the bullet/missile has achieved its target. The defaulters when caught can chew and swallow the paper and the examiner has no evidence if he makes a case. In institutions of higher learning, these pieces of paper are called micro-chips. They are normally bidden in mathematical sets, calculation, purses, bras, shirt collars and so on. 3. Irregular activities inside and outside the examinatioa WI One way the candidates commit this in the examination ball is what they call the "Stampede" Method. Here the candidates get outsiders to solve problems for..., especially in Mathematics. If they find it difficult to receive the materials ftomdjiircollaborators, one student can shout "Snake!" and all the candidates would try to stampede out of the hall. In the confusion their accomplices would smuggle the worked papers into the examination hall. Another way is where the candidates fold their question papers and throw them out through the window where little boys are waiting to collect the question papers and send to the "local syndicates". The syndicates work the problems in groups with the aid of the textbooks. Sometimes they are assisted by some unscrupulous teachers. The errand boys then tie the worked papers to the strings already. tied to the windows where the candidates are sitting and the candidates pull the strings into the room and copy the answers therein. When they can not send in the work papers by using strings, they resort to dictating the answers from outside the examination hall by calling the items numbers and the letters corresponding to the correct options. This is in the case of objective tests. "Giraffing" is another method applied even in the primary school. The students strain their necks to see and copy the materials written by their neighbours in the examination hall. The student being copied may not even know especially if the student is an intelligent one and concentrates on what he is doing. 4. Collusion in the examination hall or discovered in the scripts This type is called "ECOWAS". A group of friends can arrange for a suitable system of passing information in the examination hall. The students may exchange question papers on which points are summarised. They can also whispea' the correct answers to their friends while being on the look out for invigilators. Tbere is also a relationship between a "provider" - an intelligent student and a subscriber a below average student where they sit close together and the subscriber copies whatever the provider writes. The subscriber pays either in cash or in kind after the examination.. S. Mass cheating involving assistance from teachers and outsiders Some supervisors are bribed with money collected by candidates before the examination; such supervisors pretend that they do not see whatever malpractices that go (jft in the hall. Again some supervisors on receiving the question papers from the custodians carefully open the packet and remove a question paper which is photocopied and circulated by a pre-arranged means. With the question paper in hand "contractors" are.arranged to provide the solutions. These contractors can be the subject teachers or undergraduates. The solutions are then smuggled into the examination hall. Some 215

4 Grace Chibiko Offorma 216 times, the invigilators help to smuggle the question paper out and hand in the solutions to the candidates as planned. 6. Insult!Assault on Supervisorsllnvigilators There have been cases where hired touts snatched question papers from unsuspecting supervisors in the examination hall and made away with them to solve the problems for distribution. Sometimes a free-for-all-fight ensues in the examination hall and the candidates brandish dangerous weapons such as daggers, guns and actually use them, as a result of disagreements over the circulation of the solution smuggled into the Hall. Severe injuries are inflicted on supervisors who insist that the candidates must observe the rules and regulations of the examination. Data collected from the West African Examinations Council from for G.C.E. OIL and for Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) show the trend or the frequency of occurrence of these six major classes of examination malpractices as shown in the Tables below 1 and 2. Table 1 Freguency of Occurrence of Examination Malpractice (G.C.E.) Year Total Entry Total No % No % No % No % No % No %

5 217 F.xtInUnaIion Malpractice Table 2 Frequency of Occurrenc:e of Examination Malpractice (S,S,c.) Year Total Entry Tota I No % No % No % From the Tables 1 and 2 it can be seen that the frequency of occurrence of the different types of examination malpractice fluctuate but the total occurrence shows an increase from 1987 for G.C.E. OIL. For the S.S.C.E. the occurrence is high and highest in Mass cheating involving assistance of teachers and outsiders ranks highest in the frequency of occurrence for both examinations. It can also be observed generally speaking that the greater the enrolment, the higher the rate of malpractice. This can be attributed to over population of schools. From the discussions above we can see that those involved in examination misconduct include students, supervisors, teachers. principals, custodians of question papers and so on. The students indulge in it in an effort to perform well in the examination especially when they are not well prepared for it. The teachers, especially the subject teachers engage in it so as to cover their negligence of duty. If they have taught the students well. they will be confident that they will perform well and will not bother helping them out during the examination in an illegal manner. The principals who involve themselves in the practice are those who want to pretend that their schools are doing well academically. They want to show that they and their teachers are working very hard. They do not want to have poor results. The custodians of question papers in a bid to get rich quick, perpetuate examination malpractice by selling the question papers to the candidates before the date of the examination. The supervisors do this shoddy business in order to make money too. Parents who are anxious about their children's performance in the examination support them by providing the money for the purchase of the examination question paper or money to be paid to the supervisors who connive with them to cheat in the examination. bnplication of Examination Malpractice on Academic and Moral State. A lot of fund is spent by examining bodies to stem the tides of examination malpractices in Nigeria. This makes the conduct of examinations to be very expensive. With the increase in the examination malpractice people are worried about the validity and reliability of the examinations and the authenticity of the results obtained in these examinations. With rampant examination malpractice the integrity of the certificate obtained is questionable. We have observed that some candidates who performed well

6 218 Grace Chibiko Offorma in G.C.E. OIL euminations cannot pass JAMB examinations; and those who scored highly in JAMB examinations cannot benefit as expected in University education. Oluyeba and Daramola (1992:9) wrote that "apart from distorting effects these malpractices can have on the psychometric properties ofour tests, we are more worried about their negative need impact on our youths. Most of the candidates now believe that it is difficult to pass any examination without cheating. This is a negative habit which hampers the development of good study habits. Again the youths are learning different methods of cheating, telling lies, giving bribe so as to be allowoll to cheat. All these are very poor morals which should not be encouraged in a COUDIIy that wants to acquire science and technological skills. We all know that to achieve these skills, honesty, hardworlc and dedication are required. The Road Ahead: The coosequeoces of examination malpractice is grave and certain steps have to be takeoto curb the malaise. Some of the means already undertaken to check or stop examination malpractice are: handing over offenders to law enforcement agents for prosecution, canceuation oferring candidates' results, derecognising schools where mass "cheating is detected, reporting erring examiners and supervisors to their employers for disciplinary actions, evolving strict security measures from the on-set to development of the examination items till administration of the examination and so on. Yet most candidates have defied these measures and invented more sophisticated ways of cheating in the examinations. There are some other more effective, concrete, technical measures which when employed will help solve the problem. 1. Instruction is the process of manipulating the learning environment so as to achieve curriculum objectives. According to lmogie (1988:44), "instruction is a process whereby the environment of an individual is deliberately managed to enable himlher to learn to emit or engage in specified behaviours under specified conditions or as responses to specified situations..it is likened to a washing machine whose input (dirty clothes represent in-experienced students and the transformation in machine takes place through the use of detergent and water which represent instructional techniques, facilities, classroom environment and other means that facilitate learning. The output (Clean clothes) represents the transformed students. Their behaviours are changed. Fig. 1: Input-Transfonnation-output Instructional Model Input Instructional Techniques; Output Facilities, Transformed Inexperienced Classroom students students environment etc.

7 219 EzDmi1lQlion Malpractice 1. Figure 1 shows that for the students c:iuiaf of bellaviour to ~ there must be objectivity andsetjoiisness id die eatire instjuctioaalprocell-wbich naturally involves examinatioo. Teachers must have to teach well. n.y require instructional ma1erials. funds. and a conducive leaming atmolljllmn must be provided for students to leam. When they are confident in themselves because they have learnt. then they will not cheat in the examination. Those given responsibility for the administration of schools (school board. school supervisors. teachers) should be answerable for the effective learning.-i development of the students. When all hands are on deck. the student will not entertain any fear of failure and thus will not start thinking of any dubious means of performing well in the examination. 2. It has been observed that candidates have more opportunity to cheat when the examination is based on objective or multiple choice items. To beat examination malpractice in objective testing. Ohuche and Offorma (1992) have suggested the use of equivalent forms. This implies setting different sets of objective tests (about five sets) but the items will be similar but in a shuffled manner. It will be administered in such a way that candidates sitting together will have different forms of the same test. The issue of giraffing. smuggling the question paper out of the hall, dictating the right options from outside the hall and so on will be solved because the candidates will not be sure of which set to be administered to them. 3. A mixture of different types of objective test is also recommended. A paper can be made up of items comprising of short responses: "true. false or alternative items, multiple choice items. and matching items. If the tests items are varied some of the tricks applied by the candidateswill not work. 4. Another method of curbing examination malpractice is the use of multiple matrix sampling (Badmus, 1992). He explained that this appro8dl involves a simultaneous. random sampling of both students and items. ODe matrix sample is a sample of students taking a sample of items. It is bejiewld that each instructional programme has an item universe (a large collectioo of test items involving cognition abilities). Then an item domain is a clearly definable _ enumerable subuniverse of items extracted through expert selectioa. from die larger item universe. In constructing item domain the first step is to examine and develop the objectives of the programme. Then a given number of items is constructed for each objective. Examining bodies are therefore advised to invite experts to help in constructing test items using multiple matrix sampling. It should be noted that these techniques require a lot of fudds. This should not be regarded as a disadvantage because it is better to spend more to maintain the validity and reliability of these examinations and the authenticity of the certificates awarded to candidates. 5. The Nigerian government and the entire Nigerian society should de-emphasize examinations and certificates. The value placed on certificates as key to further education and employment acts as a major factor in promoting examination malpractice. They react to societal requirements and expectations. they employ

8 220 Graa Chibiko Olforma every possible method to perform well in the examination. 6. There is information explosion due to research findings in various disciplines. Thus there is the problem of information overload in our curriculum. There is therefore the need for curriculum experts indifferent disciplines to come together to sift only the most important and relevant materials. The curriculum should also be related to the learners' environment so as to enhance learning through their life experiences. 7. Finally proper guiding and counselling of students will help to curb exammanon misconduct. Every institution should have a guidance and counselling unit whose duty will be to identify students' areas of interest and guide them to stick to these areas. Parents should not tell their children which courses to offer because they want them to get into a particular profession. They should rather correlate their interests and aptitude so as to know to which direction they can comfortably go. Once the students' are confident, they will not entertain any fear and thus they will confidently write their examinations. CONCLUSION Examination malpractice is a very serious malaise in our educational system. This makes the authenticity of certificates awarded to candidates to be doubted. Some candidates cannot even defend their certificates. Candidates invent new methods of cheating in examinations as have been discussed in this paper. The suggestions presented in this paper should be tried out irrespective of the amount of energy, time and fund to be expended on those measures so as to make our education worthwhile. REFERENCES Ausubel, D. (1968): Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View, U.S.A; Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Badmus, G.A. (1992): "Setting of Objective Questions to Beat Examination Malpractice". Paper Presented at the National Workshop on Examination Malpractice organised by the Faculty of Education, University of Benin. Imogie, Inanoya (1988): "Principles of Instructional Systems Design" In Agun I. and Imogie I. (eds.), Fundamentals of Educational Technology: Ibadan, Y Books Associated, Book Makers (Nig.) Ltd. Imogie, Inanoya (1992): "Implications of Examination Malpractice for Instructional Accountability in Nigerian Secondary Schools", Paper Presented at the National Workshop on Examination Malpractice Organised by the Faculty of Education, University of Benin. Iyewarun, S.a. (1979): "Traditional Examination System in Nigeria: The Need for its Revision". Journal of the Science Teacher's Association of Nigeria. 17(3) August. pp

9 221 Examination Malpractice Nwana, O.C. (1979): Ed14caIional Measurement/or Teachers, Lagos: Thomas Nelson (Nig.) Ltd. Ohuche, R.O. and Offorma, G.C. (1992): "Constructing Objective Test to Beat Examination Malpractice". A Commissioned Paper Presented at the National Workshop on Examination Malpractice Organised by the Faculty of Education, University of Benin. Oluyeba, N.F. and Daramola, S.O. (1992): "Incidences and Detection of Examination Malpractices in Nigeria Public Examinations". Paper Presented at the National Workshop on Examination Malpractice Organised by the Faculty ofeducation, University of Benin. Onotume, O.S. (1992): "Crisis of Examination Misconduct in Nigeria's Secondary and Tertiary Institutions: Typologies, Techniques and Students' Collaborators". Paper Presented at the National Workshop on Examination Malpractice, Organised by the Faculty of Education, University of Benin. Ufot, a.a. (1980): "The Conduct and Place ofexaminations in NigerlaD Schools-, 7Jw Nigerian Principal; Journal ofancopss; pp