Nie-kognitiewe voorspellers van akademiese prestasie by eerstejaars universiteitstudente

[摘要] English: From several quarters appeals are made for greater tertiary-educational accessfor previously disadvantaged commumtres. This has an enormous impact onuniversities. South Africa possesses limited financial resources and cannotspend large sums of money on students with little or no chance of academicsuccess. Selection is thus necessary for the sake of the university and thestudent.Traditionally, aptitude tests and high school performance have been used fairlysuccessfully in the identification of students with a good chance of achievingsuccess at a tertiary-educational level (Huysamen & Raubenheimer, 1999). Thefairness of these selection processes is strongly questioned in view of blacklearners' inadequate schooling (Miller, 1992). It is specifically in this area that theuse of non-cognitive variables may be of value. Tracey and Sedlacek (1984,1985, 1987) found in various studies that non-cognitive variables as measuredby their Non-Cognitive Questionnaire (NCQ) may play an important role in theprediction of academic achievement. Locally, however, there appears to be ashortage of research to evaluate the value of non-cognitive variables as part ofan admissions test battery.This study aims to determine firstly whether the accuracy of predictionsconcerning black students' academic achievement may be increased by utilizingboth cognitive and non-cognitive variables. Secondly it investigates whether noncognitivevariables make a greater contribution to predicting the tertiary academicsuccess of black students as compared to their white counterparts.The different selection methods used at South African universities, as well as theproblems experienced with regard to applicants from diverse usefulness of non cognitive factors. Moreover, the seven non-cognitive dimensions upon which theNCO is based are discussed in greater detail. The value of study methods,attitude and motivation are also discussed.Two samples were used in this study. The first group consisted of 475 first-yearstudents who completed the NCQ. The second sample consisted only of blackfirst-year psychology students. The NCO as well as the Study MethodsQuestionnaire (Entwistie et al., 1971) were administered to the second sample.The first-year students' academic achievement during the first semester wasused as the dependent variable. The following predictors were used in this study:matriculation marks, NCO and Studymethods. A hiarchical (multiple) regressionanalysis was performed in order to determine whether the above-mentioned noncognitivevariables accounted for any criterion variance beyond that predicted bymatriculation marks.The results of this study showed that the cognitive and non-cognitive variablesfor the white students collectively explained 28.69% of the criterion variance. Thecognitive variable accounted for 27.24% for the variance whereas the noncognitivevariables accounted for 8.4% additional criterion variance bringing thepercentage of explained variance of the full model to 8.98. The latter is significantat the 1% level. The results suggest that the non-cognitive variables account fora greater portion of the variance in tertiary academic achievement among blackstudents than does the cogntive variable of matriculation achievement. Theformer is also proportionally higher among black than among white students. Inthe second sample it was found that non-cognitive variables accounted for12.95% of the criterion variance in addition to the 0.89% explained bymatriculation marks. Individually none of the non-cognitive variables couldaccount for any variance at a statistically significant level.

[发布机构] University of the Free State