PREDICTIVE VALIDITY OF UNIFORM EXAMINATION FOR SENIOR SCHOOL CERTIFICATE CHEMISTRY EXAMINATION OF STUDENTS IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENUGU STATE

Abstract

The study investigated the predictive validity of uniform examination for senior school certificate chemistry examination of students in public secondary schools in Enugu State. The study was guided by two research questions and two null hypotheses. Correlational research design and expo facto design were used for the study. The population of the study comprised 836 SS II students who participated in Uniform Examination in Enugu State in the year 2018, 2019 and 2020 and their corresponding Senior School certificate examination in 2019, 2020 and 2021.  A Sample size of 836 SSII students were used for the study and enumerative census method was used for the study since the researcher can manage the population. The instrument for data collection was Profoma that enabled the researcher to get students past SSCE results from Post Primary School Management Board and past uniform examination scores from Education Development Centre. The SSCE performance scores were valid since they were derived from standardized test and also the SS2 UE was standardized since it was set by Education Development Centre and was taken by all SS2 students and marked with the same marking scheme by other teachers from other school. Here both the school and teacher factors were kept constant and there was also conference marking to obtain valid and reliable results. Copies of SS2 UE scores were reliable since they were existing records that were used as collected. Data obtained for the study were analyzed using simple regression to answer the research questions and test all the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 was used for data analysis. The study revealed among others that 2018 SS2UE significantly predicted 2019 SSCE chemistry result, 2019 SS2 UE did not significantly predict 2020 SSCE chemistry result, while 2020 SS2UE significantly predicted 2021 SSCE chemistry result. Based on the findings, it was recommended that SS2 Uniform Examination (UE) should be centralized in all states of the federation since it significantly predicted performance in Senior School Certificate Chemistry Examination.