Abstract
M.Ed. (Tertiary Didactics)
The Bureau for University Education at the Rand Afrikaans University
spearheaded this empirical study as part of a team research project.
The relatively high failure rate of first year students and the negative
implications it has for an institute of higher education mnde it essential.
The Bureau for University Education makes it its object to establish a
better student selection mechanism and therefore this study forms part
of a team research project that has attempted to identify cognitive and
non cognitive factors that may _~ave an influence on the academic achievements
of first year students.
This study is purely complimentary to the team research project in that
it concentrates on a single non-cognitive factor, namely personality, and
its influence on academic achievement.
This study tries to determine whether personality tests can be of value
as part of the selection process at universities.
The test group consisted of first year B.A. (Ed.), B.Bibl. (Ed.), B.Com.
(Ed.) and B.Sc. (Ed.) undergraduate students who registered at the Rand
Afrikaans University during 1988 and 1989. ·Student's t-test was used as
a measuring instrument for the relative extensive B.A. (Ed.) group, while
the Mann-Whitney U-test was used for the other three groups. The already
available data was processed by means of the BMDP3S computer programme.
The findings of this empirical study indicate that personality as a
single factor cannot be utilised in the prediction of academic achievement
on its own, but combined with other cognitive and non cognitive factors
it forms an integral part of the selection mechanism.