ENTRY QUALIFICATIONS AND STUDENTS' ACADEMIC PERFORMANCES IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE: A CASE STUDY OF THE COLLEGE OF ADVANCED STUDIES, ZARIA, NIGERIA

ENTRY QUALIFICATIONS AND STUDENTS' ACADEMIC PERFORMANCES IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE: A CASE STUDY OF THE COLLEGE OF ADVANCED STUDIES, ZARIA, NIGERIA

Abstract: 

 This study was aimed at finding the relationship between entry qualifications and students' academic performance in various science subjects offered' for the I.J.M.B. examinations by students. The study used the year I sessional and year II (I.J.M.B.) examination results of the 1983/814. science intake of the College of Advanced Studies, Zaria. The subjects covered by the study included: Biology, Chemistry, Geography, Mathematics and Physics. In each subject there were two groups of students, (i) those with !0' level credits in the subject and (ii) those without ' 0' level credits in the subject. The academic performance of these two groups of students were compared for each subject in the sessional and I.J.M.B. examinations. 

The proportion of students in each of the two groups, who passed the examinations in the subject were also compared. To investigate the effect of 'O' level mathematics achievement on students' academic performance, a comparison was also made between the academic performance of students with and without '0' level mathematics credits. The subjects covered in this part of the study included Biology, Chemistry, Geography and Physics. In the final part of the study, the correlation between the sessional and I.J.M.B. results in each subject was investigated. Findings from the study.showed that in the year I sessional examinations, the students with '0' level credits in their subjects performed significantly better than the others, in all the subjects except Chemistry, In Chemistry no significant difference was observed. In the I.J.M.B. examinations there was no significant difference between the performance of the two groups. In the sessional examinations, significantly greater proportion of students with '0' level credits, passed in each subject except Chemistry, 

In Chemistry no significant difference was observed between the proportion of students with or without '0' level credits who succeeded in the Chemistry examinations. In the I.J.M.B. examinations no significant difference was observed between the proportion of the two groups of students who passed in Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics. In Biology and Geography, significantly greater proportions of those with '0' level credits in their subjects passed in the I.J.M.B. examinations. For Biology, Chemistry and Geography, no significant difference was observed between the academic performance of those with or without '0' level mathematics credits, in the sessional examinations. In Physics those with '0' level mathematics credits performed significantly better than the others. In the I.J.M.B. examinations, there was no significant difference between the academic performance of those with or without '0' level athematics credits, for all the four subjects. Significant positive correlations were found between the sessional and I.J.M.B. results in all the subjects except Geography.