Relative Effectiveness of Peer Assessment Technique (PAT) in Enhancing Secondary School Students’ Academic Achievement and Interest in Economics

Successful implementation of continuous assessment in schools depends on effective and efficient use of a variety of assessment techniques to determine students’ learning outcomes. Among these various techniques are the peer assessment technique (PAT), teacher assessment technique (TAT) among others. This study examined relative effectiveness of PAT in enhancing secondary school students’ academic achievement and interest in Economics. Six research questions and six null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design. 1,750 SS II students in twelve (12) secondary schools in Delta North Education Zone (Ministry of Education, Exams and Standard, Asaba) comprised the population of the study. The sample of this study comprised 107 (49 males and 58 females) SSII students who offered Economics from two co-educational secondary schools in Oshimili South Local Government Area, Delta North Education Zone of Delta State. The instruments for data collection were Economics Achievement Test (EAT) and Economics Interest Inventory (EII). The EAT and EII were validated by subject specialists and measurement and evaluation experts. The reliability coefficients of EAT and EII were 0.95 and 0.81 respectively. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed among others that the mean achievement scores of students exposed to TAT is higher than that of those exposed to PAT and the difference in their mean achievement scores is significant. Students exposed to TAT have more interest than those exposed to PAT but the difference in their mean interest scores is not significant. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others that secondary school authorities should use only TAT for assessment of secondary school students’ academic achievement in all secondary schools.