ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to investigate the predictive validity of students' scores in Mock Senior School Certificate Examination on their scores in External Senior School Certificate Examination in Agricultural Science between 2010/2011-2013/2014 academic sessions in Umuahia Education Zone of Abia State. The study was guided by five research questions and five hypotheses. The study adopted the Descriptive Survey Design which comprised correlational and ex-post facto research design. The population of the study was 7213 which comprised 3896 male students and 3317 female students, while 3627were students from rural schools and 3586 were from schools in urban areas. The study used a total of forty eight(48) public secondary schools from four(4) Local Government Areas. The study adopted the multi-stage sampling to select twenty three(23) secondary schools. The sample was made up of 3907 students which comprised 2050 male students and 1857 female students, 1641 students from schools in rural areas and 2266 students were from schools in urban areas who sat for the Mock Senior School Certificate Examination and Extrenal Senior School Certificate Examinations Agricultural Science between 2010/2011-2013/2014 academic sessions. The students were purposively sampled while the proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select schools from the four(4) Local Government Areas. The data for the study was collected using the Proforma where the researcher copied the students' scores in Mock SSCE and SSCE conducted by the West African Examination Council(WAEC) and National Examination Council(NECO). The research questions were analysed using the Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient Statistic while the hypotheses were analysed using Simple Linear Regression. The findings revealed that there was a moderate positive correlation which was significant between the students Mock Senior School Examination scores and their Scores in Senior School Certificate Examinations in Agricultural Science conducted by West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) with respective r values of 0.696 at P< 0.05 and 0.687 at P<0.05. It was also revealed that the students Mock Senior School Certificate Examination scores significantly predicted their Scores in Senior School Certificate Examinations scores in Agricultural Science conducted by West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) with respective R= 0.651 and 0.642 and prediction equation of WASSCE = 1.642 + 0.706 Mock and NECO SSCE =2.070 +0.686 Mock Examination. Based on the findings, the study recommended that since the Mock Senior School Certificate Examination is very useful in predicting