Decolonising Psychological Testing in Nigerian Schools: Developing Indigenous Validity Standards for Educational Assessment

This study undertakes the systematic development of indigenous validity standards for educational psychological assessment in Nigerian schools, directly addressing the decolonisation agenda in psychological testing practice. Psychological tests used in Nigerian schools are predominantly adapted from instruments standardised on Western populations, and validity evidence is rarely collected systematically within Nigerian contexts, resulting in assessments that may misrepresent students' true cognitive, emotional, and behavioural profiles. The study employs a multi-method inquiry design across four phases: a critical appraisal of 120 assessment instruments currently in use in Nigerian schools through systematic validity evidence review; community epistemology workshops involving 80 teachers, parents, and students from all six geopolitical zones to identify culturally salient constructs for educational assessment; expert consensus development of indigenous validity standards through a modified Delphi process with 50 Nigerian educational psychologists and measurement scholars; and an empirical comparison study applying the proposed standards to three widely used tests across 600 primary school children in Lagos, Kano, and Enugu. Data were analysed using validity generalization methods, confirmatory factor analysis, and differential item functioning. Results from the community workshops identify 12 educationally relevant constructs poorly captured by Western instruments, including collective intelligence, oral reasoning fluency, and community-embedded motivation. The proposed Nigerian Indigenous Validity Standards framework demonstrates superior construct coverage and reduced differential functioning compared to standard adapted instruments. This study constitutes a transformative methodological contribution to the decolonisation of psychological assessment in Africa. Keywords: decolonisation, psychological testing, indigenous validity, educational assessment, Nigeria.