ASSESSMENT OF PREDICTIVE VALUE OF THE JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL PERFORMANCE IN RELATION TO THE SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL EXAMINATION PERFORMANCE ( EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
In this research study, the researcher has the interest of ascertaining whether the junior secondary school certificate examination results would act as the predictors of students’ performance at the senior secondary school certificate examinations in Nigeria. The interest of the researcher in proposing to undertake a research of this nature was brought about with the fact that it is common knowledge that performance in SSCE has been low for quite a long time (WAEC 1994 and 1995), despite the fact that these students obtained acceptable grades in JSCE, and were constantly admitted to SSI. This torches the validity (Popham, 2002) of the JSCE as an adequate benchmark to check student’s capacity to cope effectively with SSS work.
However, at any given stage of students’ education, information is required about their capabilities and readiness for employment and for further studies in the next stage of education. This information is normally got from the assessment of students’ academic performance in the various subjects studied as reflected in their examination results. This provides the opportunity for correct decision making, such as certification and placement of students, and for the prediction of their future performance at a higher level. Hence, academic performance’ has been described as the scholastic standing of a student at a given moment. It refers to how an individual is able to demonstrate his or her intellectual abilities. This scholastic standing could be explained as the grades obtained in a course or groups of courses taken. Thus, in predicting academic performance, Daniels and Schouten (1970) emphasized the use of grades in examinations and reported that grades could serve as prediction measures and as criterion measures. They argued that a prediction of a future examination result could be made with reasonable success on the basis of the results of a previous examination. Findings made by Al-Shorayye (1995) and Adeyemi (1998) led credence to this point.
The findings supported the findings of other researchers that the General Certificate Examination (GCE) and Secondary School Certificate examination (SSCE) results provided the best predictor of university performance. Findings made by Peers and Johnston (1994) confirmed the validity of the number and grades of passes in the Scottish Certificate of Education in predicting first year and final year university performance. Gay (1996) also reported that high school grades could be used to predict college grades. A research by Klomegah (2007) to investigate the extent to which index scores of students’ self-efficacy, self-set goals, assigned goals and ability could predict performances of university students and which was the best predictor of academic performance. The results of the study which was carried out in North Carolina, U.S.A., showed that self-efficacy had the strongest predictive power and high school GPA was a better predictor of students’ academic performance than goal-efficacy model. From another study on predicting senior secondary school certificate examination results from performance in the junior secondary school certificate examinations in Ondo State, Nigeria, Adeyemi (2006) found the junior secondary school certificate examination results as a good predictor of performance at the senior secondary certificate examinations.
