Abstract
D.Litt. et Phil.
Technikon SA has a high attrition rate, which seems to indicate
that students are not ready for distance education and that firsttime
students at Technikon SA are of a lower educational quality
than such students at other technikons.
The purpose of this study was therefore to predict which students
are not ready for formal enrolment in distance higher education,
thereby avoiding a potentially negative situation by identifying
those prospective students who could benefit from support programmes.
Methods followed
This study, which makes use of the Kember Model of student attrition
in distance higher education, investigates the extent to which
different students, who can potentially be differentiated according
to 15 biographical characteristics, are close to or far from academic
success. The assumption is made that the identified eight
different academic performance groups are more or less ready for
technikon distance education. Approximately 13 590 TSA students'
registration records and academic performance were investigated
over a period of four years and was used to assign the students to
one of the eight academic performance groups.
The collected data was analysed by using CHAID-analysis as well as
correspondence analysis.
Results
The research question/hypothesis for this study is as follows:
Certain cognitive variables (previous academic performance)
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and non-cognitive variables (biographical and other typifying
student characteristics) are satisfactorily better than others
at distinguishing between the different distance educationready
groups of Technikon SA students.
The results appear to indicate that at least 9 of the 15 variables
are able to distinguish between academic performance groups and to
predict academic performance. The variables supporting this
research statement are placed in order of increasing importance:
Study group formation, work status, value of senior certificate,
age group, marital status, previous activities, value of
last school examination symbols and cultural group formation.
It would appear that these variables assist in defining the term
"distance education readiness" by helping to identify the students
that are in this way predisposed to it. Generally, it would appear
that older white married female students are academically more
successful than the other groups, while black unemployed female
students are academically least successful. This may be partially
explained by the large differences in the educational opportunities
and socioeconomic backgrounds of people in South Africa.
However, this study was unsuccessful in providing a clear picture
of how to identify those students