Predictive validity of students' entry qualifications into diploma in basic education programme in Colleges of Education in Ghana

Abstract

The study was conducted to investigate the relationship between students’ West Africa Senior Certificate Examination (WASSCE) grades and their performance in the Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) programme at the Colleges of Education level in Ghana. The purpose was to determine the extent to which the WASSCE results adequately predict performance of students at the College of Educational level. The stratified randomly technique was used to select a sample of seven Colleges of Education with a total of 1,443 students. The Pearson product Moment Correlation coefficient statistic was used to determine the validity coefficients. The results showed a statistically significant positive but low relationship between the two variables ( r= 0.209 at 0.01). It was also found out that using only the core subjects results will better predict performance at the CoE than using the core and some electives. This meant that though the WASSCE results can be used for selection, they do adequately predict performance at the Colleges of Education for the DBE programme. It is therefore suggested that for effective selection of students for the DBE programme, the College of Education may resort to additional predictors such as entrance examination and/or oral interviews beside the WASSCE result.