Ensuring the Validity of Technical Skill Assessment Outcomes in Technology Education in Nigeria

A prominent drawback to the economic advancement of Nigeria is the lack of right and adequate technical manpower to drive the technological institutions in the country. One factor of such challenge is the outcomes of classroom assessment. Assessment at the classroom level places great tasks at the shoulders of teachers and evaluators. The tasks increasingly manifest in technology education, where scores awarded should of necessity translate to technical skills acquired. Though a recent study has shown that the products of technology education of Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) programmes posses knowledge and skills that enable them perform creditably at their workplaces, but there still seem to be some gap between the grades they earn at graduation and the skills they possess. The need to make the technology education graduates in Nigeria internationally acceptable in terms of skill acquisition still remains a problem. Hence, the study sets out to ascertain activities that will ensure the validity of skill assessment scores in technology education. Six research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study consists of 104 technology education teachers in tertiary institutions in South East, Nigeria. There was no sampling, because the entire population was not very large, and therefore, were all used for the study. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire. The results showed that some teacher development activities, teachers’ application of item construction procedure, content delivery issues, and facilities for teaching and conducting examinations will ensure valid interpretation of skill assessment outcomes. The ratings of the activities by male and female, and less or more experienced teachers did not differ. It was recommended among others that government and implementers of technology education should be encouraged to allow the identified conditions to operate in technology education in Nigeria.