Formative Tests as a Predictor of Students’ Performance in Diagnostic Tests in Secondary School Biology.

Abstract

Literature revealed that there was poor enrolment of students in Biology related courses such as medicine, pharmacy, radiography, nursing, medical laboratory science, dentistry as a result of poor performance of students in Biology. The purpose of the study was to find out the relationship between the students performance in formative and diagnostic test scores in senior secondary school Biology. The design of the study was correlation and the population was all the 1956 students in senior secondary school II students in biology in the 2008/2009 academic session. Simple random sampling (battling without replacement) was used to sample 650 students from 14 secondary schools in Ezeagu Local Government area of Enugu State. The method of data collection was documentary information from students' scores on formative and diagnostic tests. Pearson ‘r’ and t-test were used to correlate and test the research question and hypothesis at 0.05 level of confidence respectively. Based on the analyzed data, it was found out that out of the 10 schools studied, the relationship between formative and diagnostic scores was significant in seven schools, the relationship was significant in the co-educational and boys schools but that was not significant in the girls' schools

Keywords: Relationship, students’ performance, formative and diagnostic, senior secondary and Biology examination.