Abstract

<p>This research comparatively evaluated the performance of undergraduate students in mathematics using computer-based test and paper-based test in Ignatius Ajuru University of Education. The design for this study was expost-facto survey research design. The population of the study consisted of 246 final year undergraduate students in the Department of Mathematics/Statistics in Ignatius Ajuru University of Education. The sample size used was 196 final year students obtained by systematic random sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was Student Mathematics Score Sheets (SMSS). SMSS was used to collect the scores of students in MTH 421-Partial Differential Equation (PDE) from 2012/2013 to 2017/2018 for the Paper-Based Test (PBT) and from 2018/2019 to 2021/2022 for the Computer-Based Test (CBT). The instrument was validated by three lecturers in the Department of Mathematics/Statistics. SMSS contained items such as examination year, matriculation number, gender, programme, course code, paper-based test score and computer-based test score. The scores of students obtained from the SMSS were analysed using Cronbach Alpha to obtain a reliability coefficient of 0.85 for SMSS. Four research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the four research questions while independent sample t-test was used to test the hypothesis at 5% level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that the computer-based test is significantly better than the paper-based test in evaluating the performance of students in Mathematics. The study among others, recommended that computer-based test be used in evaluating students mathematics performance during course examination in this digital age.</p>