Abstract
M.Ed. et Phil.
Poor academic performance and high drop out rates are of particular concern in South African higher education in general, and also at the institution where this investigation was conducted. The challenges facing South African higher education include a highly diverse student population, with many under-prepared students, who find coping with the academic and social demands of higher education a difficult task to accomplish. From an institutional perspective, it is important to be able to identify students who are at greater risk of not achieving academic success, since these students will often not seek help themselves. An institutional reaction to the situation described above should include a comprehensive predictive model, aimed at accurately identifying at-risk students as early as possible. This will enable the institution to provide them with early targeted assistance. One part of such a model should focus on the initial transitions students make upon their arrival at higher education institutions. The pre-entry attributes with which a student arrives at the institution have been found to be good predictors of student success and retention during the initial phases of their transition into higher education. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate the predictive value of a variety of pre-entry attributes in terms of predicting the academic success and retention behaviour of students entering the university for the first time. The pre-entry attributes that proved to be good predictors were used to create student profiles that would allow the institution and the different faculties to identify potential at-risk students at an early stage.