Multivariate Modeling of Student Placement in Nigeria Higher Institutions in University of Maiduguri: An Application of Fisher's Linear Discriminant Analysis

Students’ placement into courses of study in most (if not all) tertiary institutions in Nigeria had long been a problematic exercise. Most students get placed into courses of study they are ill suited to and then for which they are ill prepared. This research work titled “Multivariate Modeling of Student Placement in Nigeria Higher Institutions in University of Maiduguri: An Application of Fisher’s Linear Discriminant Analysis”. Focused on the Statistical Analysis of classifying students into various department based on their scores on Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). The study only covered the Department of Chemistry and Department of Biological science, Faculty of Science, University of Maiduguri. Discriminant Analysis technique was used and results obtained indicated that many students were wrongly admitted in to both Departments (Department of Chemistry and Department of Biological Science). 45% of students were wrongly admitted into Chemistry Department and 41% were also wrongly admitted into Biological Science Department based on the Apparent Error Rate (APER) calculated. Based on the result; it is however recommended that proper statistical measures (statistical application) should be introduced into the admission system of various higher institutions so as to minimized the problems highlighted.