CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

A past paper is an examination paper from a previous year or previous years, usually used
either for exam practice or for tests in tertiary institutions.Exam candidates find past papers
valuable in test preparation. Some organizations responsible for holding exams have made
past exam papers commercially available by either publishing the papers by themselves or
licensing a publisher to do the same. For example, UPSC papers in India, SAT papers in U.S.
and GCSE and A level papers in UK are being sold, as well as other exams worldwide.

Previous year question papers are to assess student’s brilliancy and capabilities. Students who
are preparing for competition exams generally look for past papers. These question papers
will help you to have an idea about the main exam. Students generally find these past papers
as private websites reveal more information than the official websites.

Many countries such as Singapore publish past examination papers from various sources and
publishers such as MOE, SEAB and Education Publishing House(EPH), where many
students found it extremely beneficial and useful as many exam-styled questions that are
asked in past examination papers are often repeated in the future examination papers, with the
exception of wording. Furthermore, these past examination papers are useful for students to
prepare for national examinations such as PSLE, N Level, O Level and A Level. Before the
EPH could publish past examination papers in the form of books, the publisher must first
seek permission from SEAB and MOE, as failure to do so may result in copyright
infringement (Thissen, D. et al 2001).

2.2 EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

The term education system generally refers to public schooling, not private schooling, and
more commonly to kindergarten through high school programs. Schools or school districts are
typically the smallest recognized form of “education system” and countries are the largest.
States are also considered to have education systems. While the term education system is
widely and frequently used in news media and public discourse, it may be difficult to determine
precisely what the term is referring to when it is used without qualification, specific examples,
or additional explanation. Like the teaching profession, education systems are, by nature,
extremely complex and multifaceted, and the challenges entailed in reforming or improving

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them can be similarly complex and multifaceted. Even reforms that appear to be
straightforward, simple, or easily achieved may, in practice, require complicated state-policy
changes, union-contract negotiations, school-schedule modifications, or countless other
conditions.

Education in Nigeria is overseen by the Federal Ministry of Education. The local authorities
which take responsibility for implementing state controlled policy regarding public education
and state schools. The education system is divided into Kindergarten, Primary education,
Secondary education, and Tertiary education. Nigeria's federal government has been dominated
by instability since declaring independence from Britain, and as a result, a unified set of
education policies is yet to be successfully implemented. Regional differences in quality,
curriculum, and funding characterize the education system in Nigeria. Currently, Nigeria
possesses the largest population of out-of-school learning youths in the world. Education
system in the South is different from the North. Most northerners have memorized the Holy
Qur'an and use that as their education.

The development of education is a major aspect of national development. For without a

concretely laid down foundation, it would be impossible to effect a purposeful development
orientation. It is on the recognition of this important aspect of national development that since
the end of colonialism in Nigeria, the various regimes in the country have devised various
educational programmes, established primary and secondary schools and indeed tertiary
institutions with the aim of laying the foundations for other field of national development. One
way the government has taken a bold step is in the area of teacher education. Thus, from the
early 1960s, apart from the establishment of teachers training colleges, the government went a
step further to establish a higher level of teacher training institution, hitherto known as
Advanced Teachers‟ Colleges. These institutions were aimed as mid-point institutions, which
would train teachers for the primary schools. Indeed, those of them established in 1960s made
their modest contributions to the development of teacher education in the country (Redden
Elizabeth, 2009)

2.2.1 EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

An educational institution refers to an administrative unit with a principal or other head, which
has teachers and other personnel in its service (role of employers), and which is liable to keep

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books and compile other documentation, in which students are registered, whose activities are
regulated by a legal act or decree, which follows a national curriculum, and which is financed
and controlled by a public authority. An educational institution does not refer to a school
building or facility. A new educational institution is established, an educational institution is
abolished or merged with another educational institution at the decision of the organizer of
education (maintainer of the educational institution) or a public authority.
Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is
the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for
example, defines tertiary education as including universities as well as trade
schools and colleges. Tertiary education generally culminates in the receipt
of certificates, diplomas, or academic degrees.

UNESCO stated that tertiary education focuses on learning endeavors in specialized fields. It

includes academic and higher vocational education The World Bank's 2019 World
Development Report on the future of work argues that given the future of work and the
increasing role of technology in value chains, tertiary education becomes even more relevant
for workers to compete in the labor market.

The scope and importance of tertiary education have changed significantly. Over 40 years
ago tertiary education, which was more commonly referred to as higher education, was what
happened in universities. This largely covered teaching and learning requiring high level
conceptual and intellectual skills in the humanities, sciences and social sciences, the
preparation of students for entry to a limited number of professions such as medicine,
engineering and law, and disinterested advanced research and scholarship. These days,
tertiary education is much more diversified and encompasses new types of institutions such
as polytechnics, university colleges, or technological institutes. These have been created for a
number of reasons: to develop a closer relationship between tertiary education and the
external world, including greater responsiveness to labour market needs; to enhance social
and geographical access to tertiary education; to provide high-level occupational preparation
in a more applied and less theoretical way; and to accommodate the growing diversity of
qualifications and expectations of school graduates.

The tertiary sector is expected to contribute to equity, ensure quality and operate efficiently
(Baker, Simon 2018).
2.2.1 GRADING IN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
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Few issues have created more controversy among educators than those associated with grading
and reporting student learning. Despite the many debates and multitudes of studies, however,
prescriptions for best practice remain elusive. Although teachers generally try to develop
grading policies that are honest and fair, strong evidence shows that their practices vary widely,
even among those who teach at the same grade level within the same school.

In essence, grading is an exercise in professional judgment on the part of teachers. It involves

the collection and evaluation of evidence on students' achievement or performance over a
specified period of time, such as nine weeks, an academic semester, or entire school year.
Through this process, various types of descriptive information and measures of students'
performance are converted into grades or marks that summarize students' accomplishments.
Although some educators distinguish between grades and marks, most consider these terms
synonymous. Both imply a set of symbols, words, or numbers that are used to designate
different levels of achievement or performance. They might be letter grades such as A, B, C, D,
and F; symbols such as &NA;+, &NA;, and &NA;−; descriptive words such as Exemplary,
Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement; or numerals such as 4, 3, 2, and 1. Reporting is the
process by which these judgments are communicated to parents, students, or others.

Grading and reporting are relatively recent phenomena in education. In fact, prior to 1850,
grading and reporting were virtually unknown in schools in the United States. Throughout
much of the nineteenth century most schools grouped students of all ages and backgrounds
together with one teacher in one-room schoolhouses, and few students went beyond elementary
studies. The teacher reported students' learning progress orally to parents, usually during visits
to students' homes. As the number of students increased in the late 1800s, schools began to
group students in grade levels according to their age, and new ideas about curriculum and
teaching methods were tried. One of these new ideas was the use of formal progress evaluations
of students' work, in which teachers wrote down the skills each student had mastered and those
on which additional work was needed. This was done primarily for the students' benefit, since
they were not permitted to move on to the next level until they demonstrated their mastery of
the current one. It was also the earliest example of a narrative report card.With the passage of
compulsory attendance laws at the elementary level during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, the number of students entering high schools increased rapidly. Between
1870 and 1910 the number of public high schools in the United States increased from 500 to

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10,000. As a result, subject area instruction in high schools became increasingly specific and
student populations became more diverse. While elementary teachers continued to use written
descriptions and narrative reports to document student learning, high school teachers began
using percentages and other similar markings to certify students' accomplishments in different
subject areas. This was the beginning of the grading and reporting systems that exist today.

In their study, Daniel Starch and Edward Charles Elliott showed that high school English
teachers in different schools assigned widely varied percentage grades to two identical papers
from students. For the first paper the scores ranged from 64 to 98, and the second from 50 to
97. Some teachers focused on elements of grammar and style, neatness, spelling, and
punctuation, while others considered only how well the message of the paper was
communicated. The following year Starch and Elliot repeated their study using geometry
papers submitted to math teachers and found even greater variation in math grades. Scores on
one of the math papers ranged from 28 to 95–a 67-point difference. While some teachers
deducted points only for a wrong answer, many others took neatness, form, and spelling into
consideration.

These demonstrations of wide variation in grading practices led to a gradual move away from
percentage scores to scales that had fewer and larger categories. One was a three-point scale
that employed the categories of Excellent, Average, and Poor. Another was the familiar five-
point scale of Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, and Failing, (or A, B, C, D, and F). This
reduction in the number of score categories served to reduce the variation in grades, but it did
not solve the problem of teacher subjectivity .Grading practices are generally more consistent
and much more traditional at the secondary level, where letter grades still dominate reporting
systems. Some schools attempt to enhance the discriminatory function of letter grades by
adding plusses or minuses, or by pairing letter grades with percentage indicators. Because most
secondary reporting forms allow only a single grade to be assigned for each course or subject
area, however, most teachers combine a variety of diverse factors into that single symbol. In
some secondary schools, teachers have begun to assign multiple grades for each course in order
to separate achievement grades from marks related to learning skills, work habits, or effort, but
such practices are not widespread. (Austin Susan and McCann Richard 1992)

2.3 PAST QUESTIONS

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Exams seem to be a mystery to most students but some may find it exciting by looking at it as
a competition. It is necessary for every student to prepare well before the exams. Some
students are always looking for a short cut. They pray about having a perfect dream about the
coming test so that they already know it but that is not a reality truth is if you wants to
succeed you have to prepare well for the exams.One of the simplest ways to prepare for the
exams is to manage your study according to a well-defined time table and allot time to every
subject. During the preparation it is always good to go through the past exams and have a
meaningful discussion with your fellows about it. It is a general observation that examiners
make minor changes in their way of asking questions ever year. It is a good practice to
compare the questions of the examiners because it will give a better idea about what the
examiner is looking for in the exam.

Most of the universities keep copies of the past exams in their libraries or they can also be
accessed from the university websites available on the internet. A good practice is to take past
five year papers and, instead of going through the past exam paper year by year, find
questions about the same topic and prepare that topic really well. Once you have covered the
topics of one subject move to the next subject. In this way you are not only preparing for the
important questions but will also understand the whole topic. This technique can be very
helpful for preparing the exam.One of the most important part of exam preparation is going
through past exams. It is important to revise your entire syllabus quickly. They can provide
you the general idea of the upcoming paper and you could easily guess the important topics
of a particular subject. Past exam papers give you the idea of number of questions and the
available choices. The time for solving the exam paper can be efficiently managed if you
have the idea about the pattern of the exam paper. It is therefore necessary for students to
give some time to go through the past paper while revising a subject.

Teachers constantly refer to the importance of past paper questions as an integral part of the
resourcing of their teaching and learning. When being employed and worked as a teacher
there was no different and decided that immersing students in exam questions from the
earliest opportunity must be "a good thing." They created weekly homework sheets and end
of topic tests using the OCR software and felt well prepared.We noticed that these selections
of questions performed in inconsistent ways. It appeared that all students were particularly
competent in some topics and equally incompetent in others. Grades using standardized
boundaries gave fluctuating outcomes.(Neil Wade 2021)

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2.3.1 MERITS OF PAST PAPER
Studying past papers is a valuable part of exam preparation and help keep revision focused on
important themes whilst practicing exam style questions.

Past exam papers are one of the most helpful tools available to prepare for both internal and
external examinations as they provides students with practical insight into how the
forthcoming exam paper is likely to look and the key themes or subject areas most likely to
be covered. Before starting revision for a subject, it is always worth taking time to seek out
past papers.

There are many benefits associated with using past exam papers including the following:

i. Helps understand likely exam time length

ii. Indicates typical number of questions

iii. Identifies number of choices provided

iv. Helps work out time required for each question

v. Identifies style of exam questions (short-answer, multiple choice or essays)

vi. Helps practice exam techniques;

vii. Helps identify key subject areas to focus on in revision.

One of the most significant benefits of practicing past papers is that it helps students to
understand the most likely topics to be included in the exam. As most courses have a broad
range of associated topics, looking over past papers will help save a lot of potential time
wasting on subjects, which are not likely to be on the paper thus making one’s revision much
more efficient and productive.

Another key benefit relating to using past papers is that it helps one develop practical time
management skills which are essential in order to achieve the best possible grade. For
example, if Bolanle spends too long on short answer questions and then has little time to
write an essay then this is an inefficient use of exam time. Therefore, if Bolanle uses practice
papers to train herself in sticking to allocated times for each question then it is more likely

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that she will be successful in the exam itself. An awful lot of exam success if simply about
technique as anyone can memorize facts but it is the manner in which such facts are
explained or evaluated during the exam that determines overall grades.

Spending time practicing old essay questions and using these questions to guide essay plans
will also help you in developing your answer and thus resulting in better marks. Practicing
definitions and short answer exam questions will speed up time required in this area where
less marks are allocated so that more time can be spent on the essay style questions which
allocate more marks. If you have not used past exam papers before, I hope you can know see
the value in using them during revision and exam preparation. Practicing past exam papers
helps to fine-tune key exam techniques and to refresh understanding of key phrases or
terminology. It also helps in terms of time management so that vital time is not wasted on
short answer questions, which allocate only a few marks.

2.3.2 DEMERITS OF PAST PAPER

The formative use of exam questions requires some consideration of how we interpret the
formative nature of education as compared to training. If education is the increase of
knowledge and understanding and training is equipping in the demonstration of skills, then the
repeated exhortation to include units at the end of a question or to show working is training
rather than education. It is preparing the student to optimize the summative outcome of a test
but is not contributing to their knowledge or understanding. Below are the demerits of past
papers:

i.Greater study pressure: Unlike the final exam system, students and teachers need to focus
throughout a course or programme, as all work counts towards the final grade. This may
cause learners to feel more stressed. Under the final exam system, students may "cram", or
study for long hours, before the test in order to get a good grade. Thus, they only have to
work hard for a shorter period

ii. Risk of plagiarism: As homework and assignments become more important, students may
not feel secure just showing their own knowledge. Instead, they may plagiarize other's work
in order to secure a better score.

2.3.4 CHALLENGES FACING PAST QUESTIONS.

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Although some of these factors are more myth than reality, several can present genuine
challenges. Henderson, Dancy, and Niewiadomska-Bugaj (2012) suggest that about one-third
of the tertiary institutions department who try at least compilation of past question strategy
abandon their reform efforts, often when they are confronted with implementation challenges,
such as student complaints, concerns about losing important content, or weaker than expected
student outcomes. In addition, faculty members frequently modify a compilation of past
questions to suit their needs in a reasonable reaction, but one that can compromise
effectiveness if the modifications omit elements that are critical to the strategy’s success.
Studies of each departments adopts a way of instructional innovations and surveys of
instructional practices before examination so as to avoid identified several factors that that
are mentioned below to succeed during examinations

i. The ability to collect and upload the past question papers.

ii. The ability for the users to be able to search, open and download and resource.

iii. Time involved in learning about new strategies and redesigning courses

ii. Concerns about ensuring that past questions are from genuine source.

iii. Concerns about colleagues’ reactions to an unfamiliar teaching method and the impact on
student course evaluations

iv. Concerns that a different strategy will not work as well, especially if it involves a new
course

v. Departmental norms about teaching methods and other expectations

vi. vii. Course scheduling issues

2.4 LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

The technology based learning methodologies require a focus on the learner’s environment.
The else with whom the learner can navigate through the learning environment affects the
amount of learning that occurs as well as the learner’s level of satisfaction with the course
web-based course that is difficult to navigate is less likely to be satisfactory to users.

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According to Thomas (2000), Success in technology, based learning program is based on
orientation to learners not the instructor strong focus on the learner and the learning
environment is a shift from traditional instructional design development techniques.

Norton and Wilburg 1998 believed that learner based tools should be selected based on the
way that the help students learn. The most important thing is how well the tool supports the
learning process. Smith (1998) described several important characteristics of distance
learning program in a university setting.

2.5 RELATED WORK

2.5.1 PAST QUESTION PAPER ARCHIVE SYSTEM

In the past few decades, technology has become a major ally in the education sector. The role
of online teaching and learning material availability in quality of learning has become
universally acknowledged and supported by decades of research. The importance of this is
made even more apparent in developing countries like Nigeria. In spite of the availability of
decades of research that shows the importance of ensuring learning materials are adequately
provided to students at all levels of education, Universities are yet to take full advantage of
the technology that is available in 2020. Past exam question papers have always been a good
resource for learning and specifically for exam preparations. Past question papers give
students a general idea of what a certain course is all about, familiarizes them with the exam
format and most importantly, it provides an idea of what their expected exam questions may
look like. This research work walks through the importance of having online learning
materials for students, specifically the past question papers. The practices used at the
university and how this project aims to help improve the current system will be analyzed. The
implementation and testing process will also be discussed in detail to aid in determining
whether or not the goal of the project has been reached. (Docsity, 2013)

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