Browsing by Subject "Student success"

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    Assessing the effectiveness of academic development programmes: A statistical analysis of graduation rates across three programmes
    (South African Journal of Higher Education, 2015-05-28) Smith, Leonard; Case, Jenni; van Walbeek, Corne
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    From Gatekeepers to Gateways: Courses Impeding Graduation Annual Report 2019
    (University of Cape Town, 2020) Shay, Suellen; Collier-Reed, Brandon; Hendry, Jane; Marquard, Stephen; Kefale, Kende; Prince, Robert; Steyn, Sanet; Mpofu-Mketwa, Tsitsi; Carstens, Rondine
    The Courses Impeding Graduation (CIG) Project is a research and development initiative of the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED) addressing the problem of high failure rates in courses that are obstacles to student retention and progression. This report report lays out the background, aims, objectives, and outcomes of the project in 2019, with a particular focus on first-year Mathematics courses in the Faculty of Science, examining which students are at higher risk of failing these courses. The report includes student perspectives gathered through focus groups.
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    The interplay between structure and agency: How academic development programme students 'make their way' through their undergraduate studies in engineering
    (2015) Mogashana, Disaapele Gleopadra; Case Jennifer; Williams, Kevin
    The interplay between structure and agency: How Academic Development Programme students 'make their way' through their undergraduate studies in engineering. This study explores and seeks to explain the ways in which a group of Academic Development Programme (ADP) students 'made their way' through their studies in engineering at the University of Cape Town. Underpinned by Bhaskar's realist philosophy of social science, the study uses Margaret Archer's morphogenetic realist social theory to explore the interaction between the university (social and cultural relations) and the students (agential relations). Data was generated through a series of three interviews with each of 12students in the fourth year of their studies and through an analysis of selected university documents. Margaret Archer's morphogenetic approach, which allows for the temporal analytical separation of structure, culture and agency, provides methodological and analytical tools to investigate interactions between their respective emergent properties. It posits that structure and culture predate the actions of agents who transform it. As such, structural and cultural emergent properties condition the situations in which agents find themselves. Furthermore, agents' personal emergent properties, such as corporate agency and reflexivity, allow them to deliberate on their courses of actions. Key to this theoretical approach is the notion that structure and culture do not act in a deterministic way; their properties can only become powers when they are activated by agents' projects. With regard to structure, it was found that the combination of a fragmented curriculum, a shortened examination period, and unfavourable examination timetables all served as potential constraints to students' projects. With regard to culture, it was found that the ideas of mainstream students and lecturers about ADP students exacerbated such ADP students' experiences of marginalisation and exception. Moreover, the study found that the mainly black student enrolment of the Academic Support Programme for Engineering in Cape Town (ASPECT) was experienced by students as racial prejudice. While the findings suggest that students thus found themselves in extremely constrained circumstances, they were also found to have exercised corporate agency and different modes of reflexivity to overcome some of their constraining circumstances. Following an analytical process of retroduction, the study suggests that the ADP, although it facilitated students' entry into the university, simultaneously positioned them within a situational logic of constraining contradiction and as such exacerbated their experiences of exception. Moreover, it is argued that, although the university has made major structural changes to accommodate students from disadvantaged educational backgrounds, the ideas that shape the ADP space perpetuate the view that these students have an educational' deficit'. In conclusion, the study suggests that higher education should reconsider the idea of separate programmes, as their inherent situational logic appears to work against some of their fundamental goals, which are to facilitate redress and to widen participation.
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    The relationship between financial aid and on-time degree completion for accounting students at a South African university
    (2022) Roos, Lily Elizabeth; Carpenter, Riley
    Financial aid contributes significantly to higher education participation in South Africa. However, while research focused on how financial aid improved access to University, little is known about its effect on ‘on-time' degree completion. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate to what extent financial aid affected the likelihood of on-time graduation as a function of selected student input and higher educational factors for students' success in studying towards a Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). To better understand the above factors, the researcher conducted a quantitative study applying Event History Analysis (EHA) and the Input-Environment-Output (I-E-O) model (Astin, 1993). A logistic regression within a discrete-time model with a personperiod dataset was performed. Data from the 2013 to 2018 UCT student records formed the basis of this research with a sample size of N=842. Based on the literature review, the input variables were gender, race, age, school type, final grade 12 marks and students' performance in the National Benchmark Tests (NBT). The environmental variables were enrollment in the academic development and support programme ‘Step-Up' and financial aid. Contrary to expectation, the results for the environmental variables surprisingly revealed that receiving financial aid decreased the likelihood of on-time graduation. Receiving GAP Aid indicated no statistically significant association with on-time graduation. Furthermore, enrolment in Step Up significantly increased the likelihood of on-time graduation, all else being equal. The findings for the input variables indicated that females and younger students were more likely to graduate on time than males and older students. White students were more likely to graduate on time than Black, Coloured and Indian/Asian students, which shows that this issue remains a transformation issue for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Another unexpected result was that the type of school attended and participation in NSC English indicated no association with on-time graduation. Most notably, students with NSC Accounting had a more significantly positive likelihood of on-time graduation than students with NSC Mathematics only. The research findings contribute value to the discussions on accounting education research and how to improve on-time degree completion. Secondly, the results could benefit policy decisions for student admission to the BCom programme. While the research results will reflect the nature of this specific university, the findings may also be valuable to other public HEIs with similar admission standards and student bodies.