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THE PREDICTIVE VALIDITY OF PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS:A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIA

This study: i) determined the extent to which scores in examinations conducted by the West African Examination Council (WASSCE), National Examinations Council (SSCE) and National Business and Technical Examination Board (NBCE/NTCE) in conjunction with the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (UME) predict future academic achievement of students in university degree examinations. ii) developed structural models for predicting the academic achievement in university degree examinations based on performance in public examinations. Records on performance in the public examinations of a random sample of 4904 candidates were obtained from 22 Nigerian universities that satisfied certain predetermined criteria. In addition, the candidates’, academic records were obtained from these universities in eight core disciplines. The forward inclusion multiple linear regression analysis was used to analyze these data and the postulated hypotheses tested at 0.01 significance level. The study revealed that there was low but positive relationships (0.118 ≤, r ≤, 0.298) between each of the predictor variables under study. Although, generally public examinations poorly predicted students’, university academic achievement, when compared individually with other predictors, WASSCE was the best single predictor of the students’, Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA). Based on candidates’, first sitting in public examinations, the following models were obtained for predicting students’, academic achievement: CGPA = 1.402 + 0.04 WASSCE1 + 0.014 UME, CGPA = 1.717 + 0.024 SSCE1 + 0.015 UME. The paper concludes with some summary remarks.

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