Comparative Analysis of WAEC and NECO Senior Secondary School Mathematics Examination

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to compare the senior secondary school Mathematics examination questions set by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) to ascertain how much the questions were distributed across the cognitive domain, the themes and topics in their syllabi. To this effect, the objective and essay question papers set by WAEC and NECO in Mathematics in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 were obtained. A total of 917 Mathematics questions were set by the two examination bodies. The number of candidates that took both the Mathematics examinations conducted by WAEC and NECO in those years was 135, 712. A sample of 2000 was selected for the study using a purposive sampling technique. The questions were analysed in terms of how many of them fell under the various levels of the cognitive domain, the themes and topics in the syllabi of the examination bodies. Six research questions were stated were formulated and tested using the chi-square and t-test analyses at .05 level of significance. The results showed that for both examination bodies most of the questions came from application level, number and numeration theme and statistics topics. Based on academic performance on the candidates there was significant difference among the urban and rural candidates and likewise among the public and the private school candidates. The conclusion therefore is that, taking the distribution of questions across the level of the cognitive domain, the themes and the topics in the syllabi into consideration, WAEC and NECO were similar. It was recommended that the teachers should endeavour to teach to cover all the topics in the syllabi of the examination bodies so that the students would not found wanting when answering the examination questions.

Keywords: WAEC, NECO, Mathematic Syllabus, SSCE, Test Development.