Relationship Between Admission Qualification and Final Grade Point Average of Graduates of a Physiotherapy Programme in a Nigerian University

Abstract

In order to facilitate admission of candidates with aptitude to successfully complete a course of study, educators are always in search of factors that  may be associated with performance outcome. This study was aimed at determining the relationship between admission qualification and final  cumulative grade point average (FGPA) of graduates of the Physiotherapy programme in a university in North Eastern Nigeria. The methods used in  this study were: Being a retrospective study, records of 169 former students over a four-year period were pulled and data on the students’ socio-  demographics, admission qualifications; West African Senior School Certificate Examination/National Examination Council (WASSCE/NECO) scores,  Direct Entry (DE) scores and remedial programme score, university entrance examination, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), in-  programme yearly Grade Point Averages (GPAs) and final cumulative GPA (FGPA) was collected. Descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment  correlation and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyse the data as appropriate. The results were: The study shows a modest relationship  between students JAMB score and FGPA (r=0.340, p<0.001), while WASSCE/NECO score was poorly but also significantly related to the FGPA (r=0.171,  p<0.01). The GPA for year one (r=0.777), and the cumulative GPA (CGPA) at the end of years two (r=0.837), three (r=0.933) and four (r=0.968)  separately, were moderately to strongly associated in increasing order of strength, with the FGPA (p<0.001). The conclusion reached was for the first  four sets of Physiotherapy graduates of the University, there was a poor to tenuous link between admission qualification/entrance exam and  FGPA, thus affirming the multi-factorial nature of the determinants of the final performance in physiotherapy programme in the university.