Analysis of Secondary Students' Achievement in Senior Secondary Certificate Examination. Physic in Jos Metropolis, Plateau State

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the achievement of students in Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) in physics as conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) in Jos metropolis, Plateau State. Survey research design of the ex-post facto type was adopted for the study. The study was carried out using private and public senior secondary schools in Jos metropolis which were purposively sampled. Randomly selected 450 candidates, from a population of 3,465, constituted the sample for the study. The instrument for the collection of data was the WAEC and NECO Results Pro forma (WANERP) designed by the researchers and validated by two experts. WANERP was used to collect data of May/June WAEC and June/July NECO SSCE in physics for four years (2013 — 2016). Two research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using the t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The results revealed that there was significant difference in the candidates’ achievement in WAEC and NECO SSCE physics, and school type (public and the private school) had significant influence in the candidates’ achievement in both WAEC and NECO SSCE physics. lt was recommended among others that that physics teachers should attached importance to skillful and full coverage of physics syllabus before candidates are presented for external examinations such as WAEC and NECO SSCE.