Abstract
M.Ed. (Tertiary Didactics)
Every year research reports give the statistics of the number of examination failures and passes among university students. These reports focus the attention on a distressing problem, namely the large percentage of first-year students who either drop their studies or fail. This problem is to a great extent caused by students who are not adequately equipped for university studies or because the matric examination results did not accurately reflect the student's academic potential. Several economic, social and political factors could possibly also contribute to students failing or terminating their studies. The results of the problem causes great impact and implications. They form part of a vicious circle: the student is influenced negatively since there is doubt about his abilities and his self-image also faces a severe blow; the student's parents, who already have many financial responsibilities, as well as the community, are also influenced since taxpayer's money is being used to finance tertiary education. The problem of the high number of first-year students who fail has therefore to be solved because of the negative implications involved. A possible solution might be that universities should submit all prospective students to severe selection, in order to advise potentially unsuccessful
students timeously or to point them in other directions. Only potentially successful students should be allowed to enter first-year studies. Suitable selection mechanisms
would not only benefit the student, but would also have favourable financial implications for parents and the government. This study forms part of a team research project aimed at
evaluating specifically the. selection mechanism of each faculty at Rand Afrikaans University, in order to determine the extent of the success achieved with the application of
the said selection mechanism. The specific purpose of this study is to describe and
evaluate the selection mechanism currently applied by the Faculty of Law at the Rand Afrikaans university. The study required a literature research in order to investigate the
factors influencing the performance of first-year students. The Bureau for University Education made available data, information and material for this study. This investigation
concerned only 1990 full-time first-year B.Proc students at the Rand Afrikaans University.
The research instrument used is known as the "M-Score". This "instrument" awards a numeric value to the various symbols obtained in the different Subjects in the std. 10 final
examination. The different values are added together to give one numeric value, the so-called "M-Score". The "M-Score" may vary between 3 and 30 as a result of the symbols obtained in the final examination.