Alternative selection measures for university undergraduate admissions.

[摘要] The pressing need in South Africa to discern on a fair basis themerits of disadvantaged students from deprived educational backg-ounds has been documented dynamic measures of testing whichare designed to assess potential and learning processes ratherthan manifest ability, show much promise in this regard.The present study proposed that a learning processing paradigmwhich incorporates learning potential would best facilitate theinquiry Into alternative selection measures, This dynamic approachto selection accounts for the modifiability of students' cognitiveprocesses and consequent performance. This study aimed to assessthe effectiveness of both traditional and learning process selectionmeasures among a group of both advantaged and disadvantaged students.A sample of advantaged and disadvantaged students in the Facultyof Commerce were assessed near the beginning of the academic yearon nine different predictors of academic success. The traditionalpredictors were school marks, intelligence, home background, motivationand inductive reasoning. Learning processing measures werestudy processes, learning and study skills, learning processesand learning potential.The findings of the present study clearly demonstrated that thetraditional measures were invalid predictors of future academicsuccess for the disadvantaged students. Matric results and thetest of intellectual functioning were however found to be significantlyrelated to academic performance of advantaged students.The assumption of modifiability of students was supported througha moderator effect by enhancing predictability of disadvantagedstudents on the basis of the traditional inductive reasoning test.The single best predictor of academic success for the group ofstudents as a whole was the learning process measure.The results suggest that it is wrong to admit disadvantaged studentsto the university on the basis of manifest functioning. Thefindings provide support for extending the learning potentialand learning processing paradigm into academic prediction andto move more firmly into the educational-modifiable approach.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand