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A MACHINE LEARNING FRAMEWORK FOR DETECTING POTENTIAL SCORING INCONSISTENCY IN TEACHING PRACTICE ASSESSMENT AMONG NIGERIAN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION
Authored By: Aliyu M., Muazu B. S.
Article Number: 1785433893
Received Date: June 17th 2026 Published Date: July 30th 2026Copyright © 2020 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article.
Teaching Practice (TP) assessment is a fundamental component of teacher education in Nigeria because it determines the professional readiness of pre-service teachers. Despite the use of standardised assessment rubrics, TP evaluation remains vulnerable to subjectivity and potential inconsistencies in scoring among supervisors. This study developed a predictive modelling framework for detecting anomalies in TP scoring using machine learning techniques. Secondary TP assessment data comprising 2,685 records from 102 supervisors, covering seven weighted assessment components: Preparation, Presentation, Classroom Management, Communication Skills, Evaluation, Teacher Personality, and Reflective Journal, were analysed using the Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) regression algorithm, with an 80:20 train–test split. The model was used not to predict scores for their own sake, since the total score is arithmetically derivable from its components, but to learn a behavioural benchmark of typical supervisor scoring against which each supervisor’s actual awarded scores could be compared through residual analysis. On the held-out test set, the model achieved a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 2.13 and an R² of 0.89. Residual analysis identified a small subset of supervisors whose scoring patterns persistently diverged from the learned benchmark, suggesting possible scoring inconsistency that warrants moderation review rather than a confirmed bias. Feature importance analysis showed that Presentation and Teacher Personality contributed most strongly to predicted scores. The study contributes a supervisor-level moderation framework, novel in Nigerian teacher education, that supports evidence-based, targeted review of TP assessment records rather than blanket manual rechecking, and offers a scalable approach to improving assessment reliability in Nigerian Colleges of Education
Musa A. & Muazu B. S. (2026). A Machine Learning Framework for Detecting Potential Scoring Inconsistency in Teaching Practice Assessment among Nigerian Colleges of Education. Journal of Science, Technology, and Education (JSTE); www.nsukjste.com/. 10(36), 492–510.
- Aliyu M.
- Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Computing, Federal University Dutse, Jigawa State
- Muazu B. S.
- Department of Computer Science Education, Jigawa State College of Education and Legal Studies, Ringim