A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN FOOD AND NUTRITION IN WAEC AND NECO EXAMINATIONS FROM 2006-2011

ABSTRACT

This paper compares and examines the performance of secondary school students who were candidates in food and nutrition examinations of both the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) from 2006-2011. Through quantitative analysis, the researcher thoroughly examined and analyzed results and statistics from both examining bodies in Nigeria, and to also identify margin of errors recorded in the chosen study areas. The researcher undertook a quantitative analysis of the performance of candidates who wrote the food and nutrition examinations in the following states-Kano, Lagos, Enugu, Akwa-Ibom and Rivers State so as to establish their comparability for control purposes. The research design was correlation. A sample of 15,213 candidates was drawn from a population of 1,422,133 examination candidates using a purposive sampling technique. The instruments for data collection included WAEC and NECO SSCE results forms. Three (3) hypotheses were tested with the Pearson correlation technique set at 0.05 alpha levels, and the chi-square test. Findings indicated a statistically significant level between candidates’ performance in WAEC and NECO in food and nutrition in all sampled states as well as performance dependency on the education policies and facilities provided by the state governments.