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Staff Perception of the Adoption of ICT for the Management of Data on Examination Malpractice

Examination boards often prescribe severe sanctions for engagement in examination malpracticebecause such actions undermine the integrity and validity of assessment. Errors in the data onexamination malpractice would therefore have serious consequences for any candidate that may beinadvertently listed among those who committed breaches. The examination board would also beexposed to litigations and loss of credibility. The West African Examinations Council (WAEC)conducts the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in the Englishspeaking West African states and attaches a lot of importance to the proper handling of the data onmalpractice. In Nigeria, high prevalence of malpractice in WASSCE, coupled with the attendantchallenges of manually processing the voluminuous data relating to the cases detected, promptedWAEC (Nigeria) from 2011 onwards to adopt ICT-driven approaches to handling malpractice casesin order to improve data quality and efficiency of processing. Using staff perception as a quality andservice improvement tool, this paper sought to provide valid and reliable information on the impactof the initiative and what needs to be changed, in order to achieve fully its objectives and alsoenable staff to have a clearer and shared vision of it. A set of questionnaire was designed, developedand used in conjunction with focus group discussion to collect data for the study. The respondentswere 25 staffs of the department that handles reports on malpractice and 275 staffs of otherdepartments who participated in examination administration and detected malpractice cases. Thedata collected were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings were discussed andvarious recommendation were made to enrich the system and achieve positive shifts in the opinionsand attitudes of staff.Keywords: Validity, reliability, examination integrity, staff perceptions, technologicalinnovations

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