ASSESSMENT OF DIFFERENTIAL ITEM FUNCTIONING IN SOCIAL STUDIES MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS IN BASIC EDUCATION CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION

The study examined Differential Item Functioning in Social Studies multiple choice questions in Basic Education Certificate Examination. Five research questions and five hypotheses guided the study. An ex-post facto research design was adopted. The population of this study consisted of all Junior Secondary class three students in Delta central senatorial district. The proportionate stratified random sampling technique was employed. The instruments used for collecting data were the 2014 BECE Social Studies multiple choice questions and socio-economic status whose validity and reliability was ensured. Data were analyzed using SPSS and WINSTEPS. Descriptive statistics was used to answer the research questions while Independence Chi-square test was used to test the hypotheses. The finding revealed that there is incidence of gender, location, socio-economic, school type and school ownership differential functioning in 2014 BECE Social Studies multiple choice test. It was recommended that examination bodies should be mindful of the disparities that exist between gender, location, socio-economic status, school type and school ownership. Some recommendations were made.