WEST AFRICAN SCHOOL CERTIFICATE PHYSICS EXAMINATION ACHIEVEMENT AS PREDICTOR OF PHYSICS EDUCATION STUDENTS’ GENDER CLASS OF DEGREE IN NORTH CENTRAL, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigates the West African School Certificate Physics examination achievement as a predictor of Physics Education students’ gender and class of degree in North Central, Nigeria. Ex-post facto design was adopted for the study. The study population comprised 989 Physics Education graduates from universities who completed their programme from 2014/2015 to 2018/2019 sessions. Multistage sampling techniques were employed to sample 694 (442 Males and 252 Females) students. The Physics Entry Qualifications and Universities Degree Proforma (PEQUDP) was employed as an instrument for data collection, whose reliability index was 0.84, obtained using Cronbach's Alpha. The research questions were answered with Pearson Product-Moment Correlation, while the null hypotheses were tested with Regression analysis. The findings reveal that Male students' WASSCE Physics grades significantly predicted their class of degrees in Physics Education (t=9.968; p=0.000 α=0.05); Female students' WASSCE Physics grades significantly predicted their class of degrees in Physics Education (t=4.588; p=0.000 α=0.05). The study recommends that WASSCE Physics grades should serve as a criterion for admitting students into university programmes because they predict gender achievement; gender equality should be considered in students’ enrolment to increase the number of female students to serve as role models.