Entrance Examination and Academic Grades: Basis for
Predicting Students' Performance

Engr. Sylvino V. Tupas

      As a general practice, freshmen students are given entrance examination to determine their readiness for tertiary education in all fields. The result of the test is a determining factor whether the student is accepted or not in the school or program from which the student seek admission. Schools may opt to use a standardized test which may be purchased from the Center for Educational Measurement (CEM) or a teacher's made test which can be validated within by the officer in-charge.

      It was in school year 1997-1998 when the school decided to use the standardized test of the CEM when after a few administration, it was found out that none was able to pass the test or say hardly to reach an expected score. Due to fear that only few will be qualified to enroll in the college which may lead to bankruptcy, the school decided to stop the administration of the said standardized test by the CEM and returned to the used of the teacher's made test.

      On April 2001, as part of quality improvement of the system, JBLCF-Bacolod was assigned by the Executive Council to prepare 100-item basic questions in Mathematics and 100-item basic questions in General Science while JBLCF-Arevalo to work on 100-item basic questions in English.

      JBLCF-Molo on the other hand, was in-charged in administering the test items to the selective students of the maritime high school. A result show that the items were valid and any 100 items from the 300-item test validated will constitutes the entrance test of any of the academic units.

      This study aimed to determine the possible correlation between the result of the entrance examination and their academic grades on the first semester.

This descriptive research seeks to determine any possible correlation between the scores in the entrance examination and the average grade of the students during their academic training.

      The sample size was determined using Sloven's formula. A stratified random sampling was used to generate 245 respondents. According to Catane (2000) authors cited no definite answer in respect to the bigness of the sample size. However, they are all in agreement that a large sample is preferable for accuracy and reliability.

      The scores in the entrance examination and their corresponding average grade during the first semester were determined from the data generated by the Registrar's Office and the Students Personnel Services (SPS) Office. The data were then processed using the Statistical Package for Social sciences (SPSS) programs for the mean, coefficient of correlation, and its significance set at 0.01 alpha level for two tailed test.

      This study utilizes the 100-item teachers made test consisting of 30 items in English, 30 items in General Science, and 40 items in high school Mathematics. The items were taken from the 300-item test prepared by the faculty of JBLCF-Bacolod and JBLCF-Arevalo which was administered at JBLCF-Molo high school for validity.

      For the purpose of this study, the general average of the 500 respondents were computed based from the students' individual subject grade as shown in Form XIX of the Registrar's Office. The scores of the corresponding students in their entrance examination were retrieved from the list of the students who took the entrance examination during the enrolment process as supplied by the SPS Office. The mean, coefficient of correlation, and the significance of correlation set at 0.05 alpha level

      The mean score of the students' entrance examination was 42.33 which is interpreted as average. The mean academic grade of the students was 82.13 which is interpreted as good. The coefficient of correlation between the scores in the entrance examination and the academic grades of the students' was 0.735 with a significant level of 0.000 interpreted as significant at the 0.05 level for 2-tailed test.