Trends in the performance of science students in the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination in Kumasi High School

Abstract

This research was conducted to determine the trend in the performance of science students in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Elective Mathematics in the SSSCE from 1996-2001. The population for the study was all science students admitted to Kumasi High School for the senior secondary school programme from 1996-2001, totaling five hundred and thirty-five (535). The document analyses instrument was administered to collect data for the research from the West African Examination Council's results sheets sent to schools, students' BECE and SSSCE result slips. The basic school attended by each student, that is, basic public or private was also collected from students' personal record forms. A descriptive survey research design was used to answer the research questions formulated and subsequently tested statistically at the 0.05 level of significance. Statistical procedures used to analyse data collected for this study included the mean, Kendall's tau and a t-test. Line graphs and frequency tables were also used. The t-test conducted on the school type (public and private) and performance in SSSCE from 1996 to 2001 in Kumasi High school revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between the performance of students from the basic public and private schools in the SSSCE. On the relationship between students' performance in the BECE and the SSSCE, the results showed that the correlation was low. The trend in performance of science students in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Elective Mathematics in the SSSCE revealed a downward trend indicating a low performance over the years under review. The results depicted that a greater percentage of students had between grades E to F in their elective subjects. On the performance of year groups in the science electives, the study showed that the 1999 year group performed better followed by the 1996,2001,2000, 1998 and the 1997 year groupS respectively. The results of the study implied that government and school authorities must take steps to improve the quality of science education in Kmnasi High school such as the provision of physical and material resources, adequate financing of edocation, teaching, training and development, improvement of the conditions of service of teachers and supervision of instruction.