The course is to enable students gain computer knowledge to complete their thesis and oral examination. It is also, to equip students with skills in ICT that they may need to teach in their various areas of specialization. The course is intended to equip students with computer literacy to help them improve in the presentation and teaching of Home Economics Education. Data management tools such as MS Excel and MS Access as well as Presentation tool such as Power Point would be explored.

This course exposes students to the nature and characteristics of psychological tests, the selection of good tests for counselling purposes and the administration, scoring and interpretation of psychological tests for counselling purposes.

This course examines both theoretical and practical issues in students’ assessment. It discusses the nature and relevance of assessment in the teaching and learning processes and examines extensively the theoretical and practical issues of validity and reliability of assessment results. Principles and guidelines for crafting various teacher-made tests and standardized tests are also discussed. Professional responsibilities, appropriate ethical behaviour of educators in assessment as well as legal requirements in educational assessments are presented and discussed.

The prerequisite of this course is EPS 853 Assessment in Schools. The course exposes students to the practical aspects of classroom test construction, administration in a school setting and classical item analysis to concretize their competency and skills in ability/ability test construction. The student is expected to work under guidance to review and discuss relevant assessment literature and present assignments related to item construction as well as present, at least two projects; one on multiple-choice test and the other on constructed response items.

This course is intended to enhance students’ knowledge and competency in constructing achievement tests and interpreting the test scores. Topics for the course include test theory, classical true score theory, reliability, validity, standard setting, classical item analysis, test equating theory and fundamentals of item response theory.

This course focuses on the construction and use of measures of cognitive achievement and ability. Topics include test planning, item writing, test try-out, item analysis, reliability, validity, criterion-referencing, norm-referencing, item banking, and aptitude test design. Students write items, critique items written by others, construct tests, try out and revise tests, and develop test manuals to document the process of test development and the quality of their tests. Students will also set standards for the tests constructed. Issues on the principles and practice of school-based assessment are discussed.

The course deals with the statistical processes of determining comparable scores on different forms of a test and adjusting for test difficulty differences so that only real differences in performance are reported. It deals with concepts of equating including equating properties, equating designs, equating methods, equating error and statistical assumptions necessary for equating. Computation of equating functions and the interpretation of results from equating analyses are covered. The importance of equating to test development and quality control measures are discussed. The use and interpretation of relevant statistical software will also be treated. Students will design a reasonable and useful equating study and conduct equating in a realistic testing situation.

The course is in two parts. The first part focuses on a critical examination of various scholars' theoretical perspectives on fundamental issues in evaluation practice. The course is an advanced study of programme evaluation in education and related fields, including investigating its purposes and procedures, with attention to settings, personnel, and performance; review of principal theories; and study of models, histories, political contexts, ethics, and the nature of evidence. The second part focuses on the application of evaluation theories and models in answering questions in education and dealing with educational problems. Students will deal with clarifying an evaluation request and responsibilities, setting boundaries and analysing an evaluation context, identifying and selecting the evaluative questions and criteria, planning the information collection, analysis and interpretation. It also deals with developing a management plan for the evaluation, collecting evaluation information, analysing, interpreting, reporting and using evaluation information and conducting meta-evaluations.

This course provides the basics of item response theory and examines the use of Item Response Theory (IRT) models for test construction and ability estimation. Concepts, models and features are discussed. The item characteristic curve and the estimation of parameters, test characteristic curves, ability estimation and item and test information functions are treated. Assessment of model fit and efficiency functions are described. Models for tests with dichotomous items are covered and discussions include advantages and disadvantages of IRT relative to Classical Test Theory. Models for tests with polytomous and mixed items are covered. Other topics include the detection of differential item functioning (or item bias), and the role of IRT in Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT). The various approaches to assessment of item fit and a discussion of their strengths and weaknesses is made. The identification and comparison of the various software packages currently available for IRT applications are made. Use is made of at least two different packages and the outputs interpreted.