THE Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof ‘Dibu Ojerinde, has said the examination body introduced the Computer Based Testing (CBT) in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to tackle examination malpractices.
The JAMB boss spoke during a lecture he delivered entitled: Classical Test Theory (CTT) versus Item Response Theory (IRT): An evaluation of the comparability of item analysis results, at the Institute of Education, University of Ibadan (UI), Oyo State.
Said Ojerinde: “First, I introduced the Computed Based Testing (CBT) because I think we can curb examination malpractices. We need to go the way of the world because everybody is going technological and if Nigeria decided not to join, I’m sorry we will be left behind. So we should do CBT. It is the answer to exam malpractices.”
Ojerinde said soon, CBT would supplant paper tests.
“This year, we used 98 vehicles to carry question papers to and from Abuja all parts of the country. Consider the danger, the risk, the life, enough is enough,” he added:
“The issue of carrying question papers to centres around the country is coming to an end. In three minutes, we could send our questions from Abuja to wherever is going to be. We’re going to do it in UK, Jeddah and anywhere throughout the world. I’ve not seeing any other examination body in Africa that has done what we have done in JAMB on CBT.”
“Let us now look at the kids who are doing the examination and let us measure their abilities rather than measuring the ability of the test,” he said.
Ojerinde asserted that estimation of item and person parameters produces more stable and precise values using Item Response Theory (IRT) because it made computer-based testing offer more precise traits estimation using IRT.
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