Die voorspelling van akademiese prestasie van technikon-afstandsonderrigstudente met diverse onderwysagtergronde

[摘要] English: Since the abolition of separate tertiary institutions for different population groups,candidates with diverse academic backgrounds apply for admission at the same tertiaryinstitutions. The increase in student numbers compels tertiary institutions to selectapplicants. Many South African researchers argue that separate departments of educationfor the different population groups led to a situation where applicants from the formerblack secondary schools who received an ineffective school education are beingdiscriminated against by selection procedures based on matriculation results as apredictor of tertiary academic success.Other researchers argue that differences in educational backgrounds are not necessarilydetrimental to applicants from disadvantaged educational backgrounds. Cleary's (1968)regression model can incorporate differences in predictor means, criterion means andprediction-criterion correlations for different subgroups. Prediction bias occurs when thecriterion performance for a certain demographic group is constantly over- orunderpredicted and becomes evident when the regression lines of the subgroups differ.Prediction bias can be removed by computing separate regression lines for differentsubgroups. Different cut-off points for the different demographic groups involved arethen to be determined. The candidates are selected according to their predicted criterionperformance. Unbiased predictions are made because candidates with the same predictedcriterion performance are either rejected or accepted, irrespective of their demographicgroup membership.The purpose of the present study was to investigate the validity of matriculation marks asa predictor of the academic performance of first-year technicon distance educationstudents. Secondly, the objective was to determine whether the predictive validity ofmatriculation results differ for students from advantaged and disadvantaged schoolbackgrounds and finally to investigate the differential prediction of these groups'performance on the basis of matriculation results. The matriculation and first-year resultsof technicon distance education candidates who enrolled in 1998 at Technicon SouthAfrica in the Free State were used. Matriculation results, high school background and theprogramme for which the student had registered, were used as predictor variables in theregression equation.The study revealed that the program, for which the student registered, explained 16,7% ofthe criterion variance. Matriculation results explained 12,5% and secondary schoolbackground explained 3,9% of the criterion variance. These results suggest that theprogramme the first-year student registered for has the greatest effect on his or hertertiary academic performance. Different standards and levels of difficulty betweendifferent programmes are most likely the explanation for this finding. The lower thanexpected percentage of criterion variance explained by matriculation results may possiblybe attributed to the longer time interval that exists between school and tertiary educationin distance education as opposed to residential education. The lower than expectedcriterion variance explained by school background can be due to the use of homelanguage as an indicator of high school background. It is possible that some Africanlanguage speakers indicated English as their home language and could have beencategorized incorrectly in the advantaged group. Also, some African language-speakingstudents could have matriculated from traditionally white matriculation authorities andcould have been categorized incorrectly as coming from a non-disadvantaged schoolbackground. The correlations between the above-mentioned variables for African(0,0447) and Afrikaans and English speaking candidates (0,1408) were significant on the1% level. Matriculation performance was thus differentially valid for both groups. Theregression equation has different Y-intercepts, but does not significantly differ in slope.No significant interaction between matriculation and group membership was thus foundfor the groups.

[发布机构] University of the Free State