Assessing Lecturers’ Belief on Assessment in Nigeria Using Brown’s Factor Model of Assessment Belief: A Study of Content-based Validity

The objectives of this study are threefold: First, to highlight the importance of assessment beliefs and their contribution to the practice of assessment. Second, the current literature on assessment beliefs in different contexts should be assessed, including the relationship between lecturers’ beliefs on assessment and their evaluations of student performance. Third, the content-based validity of an adapted instrument (Brown conception of Assessment III Abridged Survey) will be measured using the Lawshe content validation ratio for use among lecturers within the context of Nigeria. This psychometric study utilized a 27-item survey from Brown (2006), covering four dimensions: improvement of teaching and learning, student accountability, institutional accountability, and assessment as irrelevant. Seven experts were randomly selected to judge the relevancy of each item to the domain construct based on the defined four-point scale. The Content Validity Ratio (CVR), based on the Lawshe Validity Model (1975), is used to analyze the data collected. Results indicated that items under the “assessment as irrelevant” were deemed non-essential. As a major contribution to this study, the existing literature on content-based validity studies is expanded by applying the Lawshe content validation ratio. Based on the study result, a three-dimensional conceptual framework for analyzing lecturers’ beliefs on assessment is also suggested. It calls for additional psychometric properties, particularly construct validity testing, to ensure the convergent and discriminate validity of the instrument within the context of TVET tertiary institutions in Nigeria.