Academic performance of Students during transition period before choice of disciplines in Nigeria Certificate in Education (Technical) programme

The study examined the academic performance of students in the compulsory courses in technical education during the transition period of first and second years of three years Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) Technical programme before choosing their disciplines in the third year. The study comprised of 237 students that consisted of Automobile, 22; Building, 8; Electrical/Electronics, 21; Metalwork, 24; and Woodwork, 4 admitted into year one in 2002/2003, 2003/2004 and 2004/2005 academic sessions who transited to third year of the programme in 2004/2005, 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 academic sessions respectively. Data consisted of examination scores for 20 compulsory courses offered by the students and was analyzed with the arithmetic mean, one-way ANOVA and the Scheffe’s test. The study established that, students in Electrical/Electronics discipline performed better than their counterparts who made Automobile, Building, Metalwork and Woodwork as their discipline, and the academic performance of the five groups of students differed significantly.Keywords: academic, performance, transition, specialization.