RSU Students To Assess Lecturers – VC, Hails Prof. Ubulom

The Vice-Chancellor of Rivers State University (RSU), Prof Nlerum Okogbule, has disclosed that students of the university would soon begin to grade and assess their lecturers as well.
The Vice chancellor disclosed this during the 80th Inaugural Lecture of the university delivered by Prof. William James Ubulom, a professor of educational measurement and evaluation at the main campus, Nkpolu-Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt.
The vice-chancellor commended Prof. for his outstanding academic achievement and creativity, saying, “Being a professor of educational measurement and evaluation is about creativity. Creativity is every key to what we do in this university.
“From what we have seen here today Prof Ubulom has demonstrated to the world that he is indeed a professor of educational measurement and evaluation. You can see that the University management did not make mistake in appointing Professor Ubulom a professor.”
In his lecture, Prof. Ubulom, who developed the Kernel of Truth Evaluation Model in 2012 stated that evaluating an educational programme is complicated because there is no one model that should be seen or regarded as the best for evaluation.
“Evaluating an educational programme is complicated because it is made up of many different parts. In fact, no one model is seen as the best for evaluation.”
But he said in education, everything seen or unseen is assessable, quantifiable, measurable, and evaluable. It should also be noted that apart from an individual’s academic ability, every human characteristic trait or attribute can indeed be assessable, quantifiable, measurable and evaluable to a significant degree of accuracy.”
He disclosed that psychologists have identified the taxonomy of learning outcomes or domains for students’ assessment such as the cognitive domain, affective domain and psychomotor domain.
Ubulom, who a one-time secretary of Andoni/Opobo LGA of Rivers State, pointed out that there are basic concepts in educational evaluation such as measurement, assessment and evaluation, which makes everything seen or unseen is assessable.
The psychometrician disclosed that there are properties of good tests pointing out that there are about 4 methods used to determine the quality of good tests.
“Four popular methods are used to determine the quality of good tests. They are content validity, criterion-related construct and face validity.
However, experts have revealed that face validity is not a form of validity at all because it does not offer evidence to support conclusions drawn from test scores.”
“Mr. Vice Chancellor, the great University should also be thinking in this direction to utilize Technology Driven Testing (TDT) for every semester examination just as it is being used for public examinations like PUTME,” he recommended.
He lamented the high incidence of examination malpractice in the formal education system in Nigeria, noting that examination malpractice has caused serious damage to societal norms and values as well as negative effect on the lifestyle of people living in Rivers State.
The educationist stated that no proper learning could take place without assessment of the learner’s learning outcomes and the assessor himself.
“No proper learning can take place without assessment of the learner’s learning outcomes and the assessor himself. Various factors that tend to hinder the effectiveness of educational assessment and evaluation have been highlighted in this inaugural lecture and modalities to ameliorate their influence have been suggested because of the negative impact this will generate on society and for national development.
Besides, the university management should encourage every academic department to always carry out-in-house evaluation of their programmes in order to meet up with current global trends.”
He spoke of the need for teachers and lecturers to acquire professional knowledge, skills and competences they need to use in test construction.