Exploring the Academic Preparation and Performance to the Comprehensive Examination of First-Year Engineering Students

Abstract

A comprehensive examination is an academic exercise that aims to determine students’ performance relevant to their achievements in the previous years of their studies. In the old curriculum of the College of Engineering at Camarines Sur Polytechnic Colleges, Philippines, a comprehensive examination is given to second-year students of all engineering programs. With the change in curriculum due to the K-12 implementation, this comprehensive examination is being planned to be given to first-year engineering students. This study aims to explore the influence of students’ academic preparation and academic performance on the comprehensive examination of first-year engineering students. The researcher analyzed the data from 468 first-year engineering students for the academic year 2018–2019 to determine the degree of correlation between their academic preparation, academic performance, and comprehensive examination. Findings showed that senior high school (SHS) tracks have no relationship with the academic performance of civil, electronics, and mechanical engineering students. However, for electrical engineering students, there is a relationship between the SHS tracks and their academic performance. Also, the college entrance test (CET) and academic performance showed a relationship with the comprehensive examination. Findings revealed that higher ratings in the CET and academic performance tend to go with higher ratings in the comprehensive examination and vice versa. Thus, a comprehensive examination is an effective way to determine the extent of achievement of students in engineering mathematics and sciences. This study did not consider any other factors that may affect the result of the comprehensive examination.