COUNSELLING: A STRONG TOOL FOR CHECKING EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE AND COPING WITH EXAMINATION ANXIETY
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Examination Anxiety
ABSTRACT
Secondary school students³ perceptions of examination malpractices and examination ethics were
assessed. The participants were drawn from Secondary Schools in the Benin Metropolis of Nigeria.
The study revealed that majority of the students believed that their indulgence in examination mal-
practice was a common occurrence, which will be difficult to eradicate. Parents, teachers and school
principals were found to encourage cheating in examinations.
The study also revealed that majority of the students had a very wrong notion about examination
ethics; believing that examination ethics entail among others sitting next to someone in order to copy
from his/her paper in the examination hall. In all, counselling intervention strategies such as: school
counsellors partnering with the school authorities and students to set up examination ethics clubs that
will teach the virtues of hard work; school counsellors partnering with parents/ teachers associations
and other significant others on strategies that would help to inculcate in them the virtues of ±responsi-
bility² were advocated.
Evidence abound of increasing incidents of examination malpractices by students at
schools and colleges; which conflict with the core purpose of education ´ the training of the
mind and character for the acquisition of practical and theoretical skills, knowledge and
functional ideas for development; and the search for truth and knowledge and the creation
and communication of ideas (Nanna, 1997; Peterson, 1988, as cited in Aaron, 1992).
In Nigeria, the first publicly reported case of examination malpractice occurred in 1914
when there was a leakage of question papers in the senior Cambridge local Examination.
Ever since, there have been cases of irregularities reported on a yearly basis. But, the outs-
tanding years were 1963, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1977, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1985, 1987,
1991,1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 (West African Examina-
tion Council, 2004).Examination Anxiety
The major forms of examination malpractice reported are: Impersona-
tion; bringing in foreign materials (books, calculator); substituting worked scripts, stealing,
converting, misappropriating scripts; collusion in the examination hall (copying); mass\orga-
nized cheating involving assistance from teachers and outsiders; and insult\assault on super-
visors\invigilators (Oluyeba & Daramola, 1992). Examination Anxiety This trend in examination malpractices is
inimical to academic development and advancement and needs to be drastically addressed.
Examination malpractice is an illegal or unethical behaviour by somebody in the pro-
cess of testing an examinee³s ability or knowledge by means of questions (Ikupa, 1997).Examination Anxiety
Oluyeba and Daramola (1992) remarked that examination malpractices include the follo-
wing: examination malpractice is any irregular behaviour exhibited by a candidate or any-
body charged with the conduct of examination before, during or after the examination
The role of counselling in dealig eith examination.Examination Anxiety
