ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to investigate the predictive validity of the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) and Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) scores on the Post Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (PUTME) in two governments owned conventional Universities in South East. Six research questions and six null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a correlational research design. The population of the study consisted of 25550 students who were admitted for the 2010/2011-2012/2013 academic sessions. The study adopted multi-stage sampling technique. The sample of the study consisted of 1200 students who sat for the SSCE, UTME, and PUTME respectively. Two states were randomly selected while two Universities were purposively chosen. The instrument for data collection was the use of students scores in SSCE, UTME and PUTME. The research questions and hypotheses were analyzed using linear regression. The findings revealed that there was a high positive correlation which was significant between students' scores in SSCE, UTME and their scores in PUTME with r value of 0.45 0 and 0.877 at P< 0.05 .Also 78.2% of variance in students' scores in SSCE and UTME could be explained by their scores in PUTME The findings also showed that students' scores in SSCE and UTME significantly predicted their scores in PUTME. From the findings it was revealed that there was a moderate correlation between male and female students' scores in SSCE, UTME and PUTME with r value of 0.448, 0.882 and 0A56, 0.646 at P< 0.05. 79.1% and 45.8% of variance in male and female students' scores in SSCE and UTME could be explained by their scores in PUTME It was concluded from the findings that SSCE and UTME scores could predict the Post UTME scores in Nigerian Universities. Therefore, there is need for a National policy that will strengthen the PUTME screening exercise as the use of uniform guidelines as well as reliable instrument in the PUTME screening exercise. It was thus recommended that experts in Measurement and Evaluation should be included in PUTME screening committee in all the Universities.