Testing the Four Basic Language Skills in the English Language Component of the Mature Students' Entrance Examinations: The Case of Six Ghanaian Universities

This study focused on the Mature Students’ Entrance Examinations (MSEE) which is a commonly used Ghanaian university placement examination. The fundamental aim was to evaluate the comprehensiveness of the English language component of the examination in the area of the four basic language skills (Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening) tested. A second objective of the study was to explore the reasons behind the choices of the basic language skills tested in the MSEE. The multiple case study design was employed for this study, and the sources of data used were responses from in-depth interviews and the past questions. The data were subjected to analysis via thematic content analysis and document analysis respectively. The analysis highlights the specific contents of the past questions and their related basic language skills tested, as well as the reasons underlying the basic language skills tested. The results revealed that only two of the basic language skills (Reading and Writing) were tested, and time limitations and logistical challenges informed lecturers’ decisions not to test Speaking and Listening. The study recommends that Listening and Speaking tasks be incorporated into the examination to make it comprehensive. Received: 2 September 2021 / Accepted: 16 November 2021 / Published: 5 January 2022

Birthplace Favoritism and Quality of Education

We investigated the long-term effects of birthplace favoritism by top-ranking politicians on the quality of education in Vietnam. We used over 1 million test scores from the 2009 and 2014 Vietnamese national university entrance examinations. We examined both the different timing of political terms and the total years of birthplace favoritism. Using the school fixed effects, we found that birthplace favoritism did not have any significant impacts, regardless of the timing and duration of such favoritism. We did not find evidence for such impacts in the distribution of test scores either. The results also suggest that national entrance examinations were unaffected by birthplace favoritism up to 2014.

Being Popular or Having Popular Friends, Which Is Better? A Longitudinal Social Network Analysis of Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Adolescents under Major Chronic Stress

Background: Previous studies have found that adolescents’ depressive symptoms are influenced by social networks in a stressful context, especially focusing on the processes of social selection and social influence. The current study aimed to explore the coevolution of sociometric popularity and depressive symptoms among adolescents suffering from the stress attached to the Chinese gaokao. Methods: The analytical sample comprised 1062 Chinese adolescents who were under significant pressure to return to school for an additional year (returnees) to prepare for college entrance examinations. Students were assessed for depressive symptoms and asked to nominate up to five friends within their classes across four waves (six months). We employed stochastic actor-oriented models to investigate the interdependent relationships between popularity and depressive symptoms. Results: Adolescents’ depressive symptoms negatively predicted future friendship popularity in this stressful situation, but not vice versa. The results of this study also highlighted the importance of friends’ popularity, indicating that adolescents who nominated popular peers as friends tended to subsequently have lower depressive symptoms. Conclusion: These findings suggested that friends’ popularity may serve as a protective factor against depressive symptoms under major chronic stress. Network-based interventions may have practical implications for reducing depressive symptoms under major chronic stress.

Weighing Students Narrative Answers using NLP-RAKE Algorithm

The Examination portals that are deployed over several servers are used to conduct online Examination for various purposes among which some may include conducting a test for Entrance Examinations, or Olympiads at National and International level and while some portals are designed to conduct a test for placement purposes. But mostly existing portals are designed to conduct tests that contain multiple choice Questions. So, the aim of this project is to evaluate marks for Descriptive Answers.

English Language Component of the Mature Students’ Entrance Examinations into Ghanaian Universities: Placement, Diagnostic or Both?

One way that Ghanaian universities admit undergraduate students is an examination organised for candidates who are twenty-five years and above. This examination is known as the Mature Students’ Entrance Examinations (MSEE). This paper argues that the English language component of the MSEE should not only be used for placement purposes, but, also, for diagnostic purposes. A desk survey approach to research was adopted involving 43 relevant literature which were reviewed and synthesised. The study indicates that academic writing, referred to as Communication Skills, falls under the domain of English for Academic Purposes in an English as a Second Language setting like Ghana. It is further advanced that Communication Skills is essential for the performance of students in school. The paper, therefore, argues for the English language component of the MSEE to be used not only for placement purposes but for diagnostic purposes. The study recommends that the latter approach should be included since it will help improve the performances of students in Communication Skills. Received: 4 March 2021 / Accepted: 6 May 2021 / Published: 8 July 2021

Benchmarking of the English Language Component of the Mature Students’ Entrance Examinations in Ghana against the WASSCE English Language Component

This paper was purposed on benchmarking the English language component of the Mature Students’ Entrance Examinations (MSEE) (administered in Ghana by universities to select undergraduate candidates) to the English language component of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) which constitutes the mainstream Ghanaian university undergraduate entrance examination. The qualitative design (specifically, multiple case study design) was employed for this study. Using the multi-stage sampling technique, six Ghanaian universities (from whom eighteen English language component of the MSEE past questions were elicited) and three sets of the WASSCE English language component past questions administered in 2016, 2017 and 2018) were used for the study. O’Leary’s (2014) eight steps of conducting document analysis were used to analyse the data. The study revealed that there are major mismatches between the two sets of examinations in the areas of the test types, the basic language skills tested and the competences tested. The study advanced, to policy makers, suggestions such as testing Speaking and Listening for the improvement of the two sets of examinations. Received: 2 May 2021 / Accepted: 15 June 2021 / Published: 8 July 2021

The genesis of IT tools in making management decisions of the university admission committee

The article discusses the issue of the dynamics of changes in IT tools that have been and are used to make management decisions in the work of the university admission committee. The main directions of the work of the admission committee are highlighted: organizational and methodological, technological, the actual admission campaign and generalization, as the final stage at which the results of the admission campaign are summed up. The features of each of the directions are highlighted and the IT tools that were used for them are indicated. It is shown that over the past two decades, IT tools have undergone drastic changes, which are associated with an increase in the functionality of the admission committee. Arguments are given in support of the thesis that the solution for automating the management activities of the university, in particular for the admission campaign, over the past years has been a domestic software on the 1C:Enterprise platform — the 1C:University system. The article presents the stage-by-stage coordination of the admission campaign — from planning and forming the required list of documents (application of the applicant, receipt, examination sheets) to processing information about entrance examinations and USE results, forming enrollment orders. It is shown that the 1C:University system occupies an important place in the automation of many processes taking place in the admission office of the university. Online services that are important for the organization of the admission campaign are described.

Determining Students Preparation for College Entrance Examinations in Indonesia From Twitter Data Using Exploratory Data Analysis

Nowadays, educational data can be learned not only for those in Education but also in Information Technology. This happened because education and technology can no longer be separated. Senior high school graduates will take College Entrance Examination to be admitted to public institutions in Indonesia. Sometimes, they share their progress, target, and complain on social media. In this research, we collected data from Twitter. We explore the data to determine student's preparation using Exploratory Data Analysis. The results are positive words in both English and Indonesia, word count, word cloud, and geographical data plot.