Performance of Participants on Multiple Answers Type Item in Research Methodology as a Function of Discipline , Gender and their Interaction

Examination is a part and parcel of Teaching-Learning Process. In examination or tests different types of question are asked by teachers. These are Essay, Short Answer, Multiple Choice, Fill-in the Blanks, and Matching Types. These are not very suitable for Open Book Examination. Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology were developed for the research. It is a new type of question which can be used by school, College and University teachers irrespective of the subject taught by them. The objective of this research was to study the influence of Discipline, Gender and their interaction on Performance of participants on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology. The Hypothesis formulated in null form was there is no significant influence of Discipline, Gender and their interaction on Performance of participants on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology. This study was conducted on Sample of 423 Deans, Professors, Associate Professors, Assistant Professors, Research Fellows and Postgraduate students from 26 states and six countries. Data were collected online using WhatsApp and emails during Covid-19 period. The findings were: (1) Social Science participants were found to have better understanding of Research Methodology than Science as well as Humanities participants. Further Science as well as Humanities participants were found to similar understanding of Research Methodology. (2) Male and Female Participants were found to perform equally well on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology. (3) Performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology was found to be independent of interaction between Discipline and Gender of Participants.


Introduction
Destiny of India is being shaped in her classrooms was scripted by Kothari (1966). In classrooms, examination is part and parcel of Teaching -Learning Process. People have been criticizing examination system. All types of allegations are made but still it is continuing and people use examination results for admission into higher classes and employment. But some agencies have started conducting their own examination for selection purpose. The agencies are UPSC, IIT, IIM, NCERT, UGC, etc. Also many schools and Universities have also started conducting entrance test for admitting students in different courses. At present annual / semester examinations are of three hours. Question papers normally contain long answer type questions. Some Universities have a provision of giving Objective type questions also. The different types of Objective type questions are Multiple Choice, Fill-in-Blanks, Matching, short answer type, etc. Questions asked in different examinations are not to be answered using books. That is, Open Book Examination is hardly conducted by majority of Universities and Colleges in India except in IITs, IISc., IIMs, etc. Teachers of Department of Education, Devi Ahilya University, Indore were giving Open Book Examination. Students used to fail but still they liked it. Multiple Discriminate Type Item was developed by Sansanwal and Tyagi (2011) where the guessing reduced substantially. To answer this type of question, learner must have understanding of the content without which one cannot answer the question correctly. This type of question was very appropriate for Open Book Examination.
Normally there is only one correct answer in Multiple Choice Item. Why cannot there be more than one correct answer in one question? Researcher started thinking and has developed large number of Multiple Answers Type Item with more than one correct answer. Such items are good for testing higher mental ability. Students may be given freedom to use books or any other source which they want. So Multiple Answers Type items are appropriate for Open Book examination which can assess understanding and application ability of learners. During lockdown period such items may be used for examination purpose. Items with more than one correct answer can be used in all subjects including Music, Dance, Panting, Languages, Engineering, Medical, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology, History, Economics, Political Science, Statistics, etc.

Objective
The objective of this study was: • To study the influence of Discipline, Gender and their interaction on Performance of participants on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology.

Hypothesis
The following was the Hypothesis of this study: • There is no significant influence of Discipline, Gender and their interaction on Performance of participants on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology.

Tool
The test was developed by the researcher. It consisted of two questions from Research Methodology. Research Methodology is taught to students as it is part and parcel of Pre-Ph.D. Course in all Universities of India. Irrespective of subject, each student tend to enroll for Ph.D. in any subjects has to undergo Pre-Ph.D. Course in that subject. The questions given to participants were as follows:

Which of the Following Statement(s) is/are Correct?
A. The degree of freedom can be in fraction mathematically. B. The degree of freedom is always in whole number. C. Conceptually degree of freedom is in whole number. D. Degree of freedom is always less than the total size of sample. E. The degree of freedom is sometime less than the total sample. F. There is no concept of degree of freedom in Historical Researches.

Basis(es) of Formulation of Hypothesis is/are
A. Textbook read by the researcher. B. Papers related to the area of research published in e-journals. C. Papers read by the researcher from the journals. D. Online researches available. E. Related researches available on Shodhganga. F. Analysis of collected Data. G. Theory underlying the problem of research.
In both the questions, correct answers were more than one. In case of question 1, the correct answers were A, C, D, and F but for question 2, it was B, E and G. For each correct answer, one mark was given and for each wrong answer 0.25 marks were deducted. This test was not standardized.

Procedure of Data Collection
Data were collected online by sending questions to people through WhatsApp as well as email. The researcher thought that during lockdown it is not possible to visit institutes of higher education for collecting data. After sending questions to Dean, Professors, Associate Professors, Assistant Professors, Research Scholars and Postgraduate students belonging to different Universities, Colleges and Deem-to-be Universities, respondents were requested many a time to answer the questions. Some respondents refused to answer and stated that they did not study Research Methodology as part of their course. There was no time limit for answering the questions. Also there was no restrictions as to whether they refer to books, websites, discuss with their friends or teachers, etc. It means that there was 100% freedom for the respondents.

Influemce of Discipline, Gender & Their Interaction on Performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology of Participants
The objective was to study the influence of Discipline, Gender and their interaction on Performance of participantson Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology. Social Science, Science and Humanities are three levels of Discipline while Male and Female were the two levels of Gender. Thus the data were analysed with the help of 3X2 Factorial Design ANOVA and the results are given in Table 1.   Table 2). It indicates that the mean scores of Performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology of participants from Social Science and Humanities Groups differ significantly. Further the mean score of Performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology of Social Science participants is 3.55 which is significantly higher than those of Humanities participants whose mean score of Performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology is 2.80. It may, therefore, be said that Social Science participants were found to have better understanding of Research Methodology than their counter parts of Humanities participants.
The t-value for Science and Humanities Groups is 0.31 which is not significant (Vide Table 2). It indicates that the mean scores of Performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology of participants from Science and Humanities Groups did not differ significantly. It may, therefore, be said that Science as well as Humanities participants were found to similar understanding of Research Methodology.

Influence of Gender on Performance of participants on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology
From Table 1, it can be seen that the F-value for Gender is 0.002 which is not significant. It indicates that the mean scores of Performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology of Male and Female participants did not differ significantly. So there was no significant influence of Gender on Performance of participants on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology. Thus the null hypothesis that there is no significant influence of Gender on Performance of participants on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology is not rejected. It may, therefore, be said that both Male and Female Participants were found to perform equally well on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology.

Influence of interaction between Discipline and Gender on Performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research
Methodology of participants F-value for interaction between Discipline and Gender is 0.17 which is not significant (Vide Table 1). It indicates that the mean scores of Performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology of Male and Female participants belonging to Social Science, Science and Humanities did not differ significantly. So there was no significant influence of interaction between Discipline and Gender on Performance of participants on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology. Thus the null hypothesis that there is no significant influence of interaction between Discipline and Gender on Performance of participants on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology is not rejected. It may, therefore, be said that performance on Multiple Answers Type Items in Research Methodology was found to be independent of interaction between Discipline and Gender of participants.