Mumbai is a metropolitan city attracting people from all over India in search of job. It is known to have a capacity to absorb everyone. In the process, it has become one of the most overpopulated cities with a population of 19,478,447 and population density of 32,303 per sq.km (https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_ population_density). It is known to be the most densely populated city in the world. The current population of Maharashtra State is 124,862,220 (
There is a controversy going on currently regarding whether university examinations for final semester should be conducted or not. Pros and cons of conducting university examinations are being discussed vociferously by different sections and stakeholders. Some are saying that examinations must be conducted while others are saying that examinations should not/cannot be conducted with divergent opinions and the reasons thereof.
The former chairperson of UGC, Prof. Vedprakash (Hindustan Times, 27th July 2020) has identified four major perspectives related to final year/semester examination, namely, (a) professional credibility, (b) legal defensibility, (c) safety and security of students and (d) public acceptability. The first one, namely, professional credibility is an important issue. The ultimate outcome of any instructional efforts is determined by conducting examinations. If students are promoted without determining whether the learning is adequately complete for going on to the next stage, then it is quite legitimate to raise queries about the professional credibility of the education system and its process. The second one, namely, legal defensibility of not conducting examinations would arise if students have worked much harder for the final year/semester as compared to earlier examinations and yet they are promoted on the basis of their earlier performance. The third one, namely, parents’ reservations and anxiety about safety and security of students is also an important issue especially, if institutions are not able to develop foolproof system of conducting examinations. Prof. Vedprakash further identifies the fourth perspective, namely, that of public acceptability if students are given degrees without identifying a viable alternative of conducting examinations.
At the international level, Gwang-Chol Chang, Chief of Section of Education Policy referred to UNESCO’s recent rapid global analysis and stated that 69.05% of the 84 countries surveyed have postponed or rescheduled exams, 27.38% introduced alternative methods such as online or home-based testing, 26.19% maintained exams while in 13.1% countries, exams have been cancelled completely. Xiaoting Huang, Director with the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority of China states that “
Based on the discussions mentioned in the earlier paragraphs, the researchers decided to conduct the present study. The topic of this paper has emerged purely out of academic curiosity.
Under the circumstances mentioned in the preceding section, the researchers found the topic of academic interest and thought that it is imperative that an analysis of past data be done with purely an academic interest so as to find out whether students’ CGPA differs significantly from first to seventh semesters in a four-year degree programme. This is essential in order to decide whether conducting final year examination will help elevate students’ CGPA or not. It will also throw light on whether students work consistently throughout their eight semesters of undergraduate college. Universities across India have adopted semester system and examinations are conducted after each semester. It would be interesting to find out whether there is any consistency in the results or academic performance of students across semesters. This is ultimately expected to throw light on the effectiveness of the semester system.
To compare the final CGPA of students with their average academic performance across semesters.
The sample consisted of students from the Engineering discipline. In particular, it consisted of those students who completed their engineering in the subjects of Computer Science, Information Technology, Electronics & Communication Technology and Electronics and whose final eighth semester results were declared in Summer 2019. There were total 253 engineering students included in the study.
The sample of students was selected from a college affiliated to a state university situated in Western India. The study adopted a two-stage sampling technique. At the first stage, a college was selected using simple random sampling technique. At the second stage, four programmes, namely, BE in Computers, BE in Information Technology, BE in Electronics & Communication Technology and BE in Electronics were selected using simple random sampling technique. All students who appeared for the eighth semester examination in 2019 from the above four programmes were included in the study.
The study has adopted the ex-post-facto method in that, students’ average academic performance of Semester 1 to Semester 7 and their final CGPA obtained in all the semesters have been compared after the students appeared for all the eight semesters and their results are declared.
The study may also be termed as decision-oriented research since it is designed to be directly relevant to the present COVID-19 pandemic vis-à-vis the examination system in India. This could be used for managing the examination system in the current scenario for making evidence-based decisions.
The technique used to test all the hypotheses mentioned earlier is the t-test. The following table shows the relevant descriptive statistics of semester-wise Average Academic Performance (AAP) of the Total Sample of Students (TSS).
Semester-Wise AAP of the TSS
Mean Differences in AAP by Semesters for TSS
The preceding table shows the following :
The P-value is very much less than the considered level of significance .01. Hence the first null hypothesis is rejected indicating that there is a significant difference between (i) the average academic performance of Semester 1 to Semester 7 and (ii) the final CGPA by semesters of the total sample of students. The final CGPA is less than the average academic performance of Semester 1 to Semester 7. The P-value is greater than the LoS .01 Hence the second null hypothesis is accepted. i.e There is no significant difference between (i) the average academic performance of Semester 2 to Semester 7 and (ii) the final CGPA by semesters of the total sample of students. In this case also, the P-value is greater than the considered level of significance .01 Hence the third null hypothesis is accepted. It may be inferred that there is no significant difference between (i) the average academic performance of Semester 3 to Semester 7 and (ii) the final CGPA by semesters of the total sample of students. The P values corresponding to the last three cases being less than the LoS, the fourth, fifth and sixth null hypothesis are rejected. This implies that there is a significant difference between (i) the average academic performance of students in Semester 4 to Semester 7, Semester 5 to Semester 7 & Semester 6 to Semester 7 and (ii) the final CGPA by semesters of the total sample of students. Further, the final CGPA is less than the average academic performance of Semester 4 to Semester 7, Semester 5 to Semester 7 & Semester 6 to Semester 7 respectively.