How Higher Secondary School Students Perceive The Neet Examination: A Quantitative Report

The present study tries to determine the attitude towards the NEET examination among higher secondary school students in Erode District. The survey method is applied for this research study. 350 higher secondary students were selected as a sample by using a stratified random sampling technique. NEET Attitude Scale, which is constructed and standardised by Nithya (2017), was used for this study. This study found that Higher secondary school students studying in Erode district had neither a positive nor negative attitude towards the NEET examination.


Introduction
NEET is a national level entrance examination for medical school admission. The National Testing Agency is in charge of this examination. Only candidates who pass this exam are eligible for admission to both governments and privately funded medical schools. The NEET test is based on the students' higher secondary subjects, particularly their scientific disciplines. To avoid malpractices, the NEET examination is administered in a very stringent manner.

Review of Related Studies
Chandrasekaran (2019) conducted a study on "Awareness and attitude towards NEET of Tamil Nadu rural higher secondary school students". The findings of the study revealed that there is significant association was found in the demographic variables such as in nature of the school and parental educational status about the awareness and attitude towards NEET among rural higher secondary schools in Tamil Nadu. Arumugam et al. (2019) conducted an exploratory study on "NEET for Medics: A Guarantee of Quality? This study found that the pass percentage of students who studied under State Board and MBBS enrolment were lesser in 2017 than in 2016. Nithyapriya and Malathy (2018) conducted a study on "Attitude towards NEET, IIT Entrance Examinations among Higher Secondary School Students in Tirupur District". The investigators found a significant difference in attitude in NEET, IIT entrance examinations between the Nature of School, types of family, Types of School, Educational qualifications of mothers among higher secondary school students. Although there is a lot of public debate in Tamil Nadu about the NEET examination, few scientific studies have been done on it. Especially in the Erode district, where it is known from review literature that there is no scientific study on NEET. Hence, the investigators conducted this study on NEET in Erode district.

Need for the Study
NEET is an eligibility and entrance examination. It creates both positive and negative views on medical admission. In a positive light, it is a single common test for admission in India for almost all medical institutions. It decreases the students' unnecessary effort to prepare for many entrance examinations for getting admission. Besides, it saves time and money for students. It produces the opportunity to get admission to the best medical colleges of the Nation based on students' meritorious performance. On a negative aspect, this examination is causing problems for students who are studying in rural areas. Because coaching class facilities are not available, many schools don't have the necessary resources, teachers, and proper opportunities. By reflecting on both aspects of the NEET examination, the investigator wants to study the attitude towards NEET among higher secondary students.

Operational Definitions A) Attitude
Attitude represents that one's psychosocial behaviour towards a person, object, event or anything. It has both positive and negative perspectives. In the present study, attitude denotes the tendency of higher secondary school students towards the NEET Examination.

B) NEET Examination
The term NEET is a short form of the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test. It is the national level examination for those seeking medical admission after completing the higher secondary course in India.

C) Higher Secondary School Students
Students those who are studying higher secondary course under the state board and CBSE education system in Tamilnadu. In this study, higher secondary school students represent the biology group students only.

Objectives of the Study
• The main objective of the study is to find out the attitude of higher secondary school students about the NEET examination. • To find out whether there is any significant difference in the attitude of higher secondary school students towards NEET examination based on the selected variables gender, locality of residence, type of school, medium of instruction, board of examination, monthly income of family and NEET coaching.

Hypotheses of the Study
• There is no significant difference in the attitude of higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination based on gender. • There is no significant difference in the attitude of higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination based on the locality of residence. • There is no significant difference in the attitude of higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination based on the type of school. • There is no significant difference in the attitude of higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination based on the medium of instruction. • There is no significant difference in the attitude of higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination based on the board of examination. • There is no significant difference in the attitude of higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination based on the monthly income of the family. • There is no significant difference in the attitude of higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination based on NEET coaching.

Method used
The investigators have chosen the survey method for studying the problem of this study.

Population and Sample
Students who were studying biology group at higher secondary in government, aided and private schools in Erode district considered as a population of this study. In this study, the investigators used a stratified random sampling technique. 350 higher secondary school students were selected as the samples for this study.

The Tool used for the Study
To measure the Attitude of higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination, the investigators used the "NEET Attitude Scale" constructed and standardised by Nithya (2017). NEET Attitude Scale consists of 45 items that contain both positive and negative statements. It is a Likert type scale (Strongly Agree / Agree / undecided / Disagree / Strongly Disagree). The investigators established the content validity for the NEET scale and the reliability of the scale was verified using the test-retest method. It was found to be 0.73.

Statistical Techniques used
The investigators applied descriptive statistics (Mean and SD), inferential statistics (students "t" test and ANOVA) to process the data collected from the samples. From table 1, all the higher secondary school students' attitude Scores fall in the Neutral category (83-187). There is no positive or negative attitude towards the NEET examination.  From table 3, the calculated 'F' value 41.02 is higher than the table value 3.04 at a 0.05 level of significance. Therefore, there is a significant difference in the attitude of higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination based on the type of school. Hence, null hypothesis 3 is rejected.

Findings of the Study
• Higher secondary school students studying in Erode district had neither a positive nor negative attitude towards the NEET examination. • Girls (M=141.44) had a better attitude towards the NEET examination than the boys in higher secondary school students (M=136.09). • Rural and urban area higher secondary school students did not differ in their attitude towards the NEET examination. • Self-finance school higher secondary students (M=145.39) had a better attitude towards the NEET examination than the government (M=132.71) and aided school higher secondary students (M=130.81). • English medium higher secondary school students (M=144.35) had a better attitude towards the NEET examination than the Tamil medium higher secondary school students (M=129.19). • CBSE school higher secondary school students (M=156.47) had a better attitude towards the NEET examination than the state board higher secondary school students (M=131.75). • Higher secondary school students whose family income was fifteen thousand and above (M= 140.74) had a better attitude towards NEET exams than the higher secondary school students whose family income was less than fifteen thousand (136.94). • Higher secondary school students going to NEET coaching (M=155.60) had a better attitude towards the NEET examination than the higher secondary school students. The latter are not going for NEET coaching (M=131.32).

Discussion
Higher secondary school students studying in Erode district had neither a positive attitude nor a negative attitude towards the NEET examination. This may be because the awareness about the NEET examination among higher secondary school students may be inadequate.
Girls showed a better attitude than boys in higher secondary school students towards the NEET examination. This may be because girls find it as an ultimate aim and make sincere efforts towards it than the boys.
Self-finance school higher secondary students had a better attitude towards NEET examination than the government and aided school higher secondary students. This may be due to the fact self-finance schools may provide special NEET coaching in their school and also have a separate section in the library for NEET preparation.
English medium higher secondary school students had a better attitude towards the NEET examination than the Tamil medium higher secondary school students. This may be because a lot of study materials for NEET preparation is available in English than the other languages.
CBSE school higher secondary students had a better attitude towards NEET examination than the state board higher secondary school students because CBSE syllabus is resembling NEET syllabus in higher secondary.
Higher secondary school students whose family income is fifteen thousand and above had a better attitude towards NEET exams than the higher secondary school students whose family income was less than fifteen thousand. Due to the poor economic background of the family, they were not effort to buy books and study materials for NEET, which reduce their confidence.
Higher secondary school students who are going to NEET coaching had a better attitude towards the NEET examination than the higher secondary school students who are not going NEET coaching because students who are going to coaching classes may get more exposure to NEET examination and may also get more courage from the coaching classes.
The background variable locality of residence only did not influence the attitude towards the NEET examination among the higher secondary school students in this study.

Delimitations of the Study
• This study is conducted only on Biology group students. • Due to difficulty getting permission to conduct on XII standard students, this study is conducted only on XI standard students. • Within the limited time, it is not possible to conduct the research study in the entire Tamil Nadu. So the researchers restricted the field of study in Erode district only.

Conclusion
Society has both positive and negative perceptions on the NEET examination, the investigators are interested in conducting this study on higher secondary school students who are going to attend the NEET examination soon. This study found that higher secondary school students in Erode district had neither a positive nor negative attitude towards the NEET examination. The variables gender, type of school, medium of instruction, board of examination, monthly income of family and NEET coaching influence the attitude of higher secondary school students towards NEET examination in Erode district.