An investigation of the relationship between social class, success in the Common Entrance Examination and performance in the GCE `O' level examinations, Jamaica, 1975
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Sep. 1979
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Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between social class, success in the Common Entrance (CE) examination (11+) and performance in the General Certificate of Education (GCE) O'Level examination (1975) for a sample of 574 Jamaican students randomly selected from high schools in urban and rural Jamaica. The major dependent variable was the average grade gained by each student in the GCE, but there was also a secondary dependent variable in the form of the average number of subjects entered for. It is hypothesized that these two measures would be consistent, and thus serve to provide validation for the findings. Independent variables were 11+ performance, socio-economic stratum (SES) of students, location of school, and sex of student. The data were statistically analysed to identify instances of significant differences in performance among the various categories of students. The main findings were as follows: 1) urban boys of the upper SES who had not passed the 11+ examination entered for the largest number of GCE subjects; next were upper SES urban boys who had passed the 11+ examination, followed by their female counterparts; 2) in terms of the average grade obtained, urban girls in the upper SES category who had passed 11+, achieved the highest score, followed by urban upper SES boys who had not passed 11+, and then by those who had passed; 3) overall, students with 11+ passes achieved significantly better in the GCE than those without, hence the predictive value of the CE examination was substantiated; 4) it was found that, especially in the case of urban boys, SES was a more powerful and influential variable on GCE performance than 11+ performance; and 5) students in urban schools appeared more susceptible to SES and 11+ influences than their rural counterparts