A blurred signal? The usefulness of National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics marks as predictors of academic performance at university level
Internationally, performance in school Mathematics has been found to be a reliable predictor of performance in commerce courses at university level. Based on the predictive power of school-leaving marks, universities use results from school-leaving Mathematics examinations to rank student applicant...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of the Free State
2010-06-01
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| Series: | Perspectives in Education |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://196.255.246.28/index.php/pie/article/view/22 |
| _version_ | 1797257954173386752 |
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| author | Volker Schöer Miracle Ntuli Neil Rankin Claire Sebastiao Karin Hunt |
| author_facet | Volker Schöer Miracle Ntuli Neil Rankin Claire Sebastiao Karin Hunt |
| author_sort | Volker Schöer |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
Internationally, performance in school Mathematics has been found to be a reliable predictor of performance in commerce courses at university level. Based on the predictive power of school-leaving marks, universities use results from school-leaving Mathematics examinations to rank student applicants according to their predicted abilities. However, in 2008 the structure and scope of school-leaving examinations changed in South Africa from the former Senior Certificate (SC) to the new National Senior Certificate (NSC). This structural break seems to create fluctuations in the signalling ability of the schoolleaving marks. South African universities are unsure about how well the current NSC Mathematics marks reflect the underlying numerical competence of students, given that a high number of the 2009 student intake failed their first-year core courses across faculties. This paper estimates a deflator for the new NSC Mathematics marks relative to the former Higher Grade (HG) Mathematics marks, by comparing performance in similar first tests of two commerce subjects, Economics 1 and Computational Mathematics, between the 2008 and 2009 first-year cohorts. The results indicate that the signalling ability of the NSC Mathematics marks is reduced significantly. Instead of differentiating students according to their abilities, the new NSC Mathematics marks compress students with a wide range of abilities and disabilities into a very narrow range of percentage marks.
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| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T22:45:50Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7525b123ea114fe2ad6b5c46df7219b8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 0258-2236 2519-593X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T22:45:50Z |
| publishDate | 2010-06-01 |
| publisher | University of the Free State |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Perspectives in Education |
| spelling | doaj.art-7525b123ea114fe2ad6b5c46df7219b82024-03-18T11:12:30ZengUniversity of the Free StatePerspectives in Education0258-22362519-593X2010-06-0128210.38140/pie.v28i2.22A blurred signal? The usefulness of National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics marks as predictors of academic performance at university levelVolker Schöer0Miracle Ntuli1Neil Rankin2Claire Sebastiao3Karin Hunt4University of the WitwatersrandUniversity of the WitwatersrandUniversity of the WitwatersrandUniversity of the WitwatersrandUniversity of the Witwatersrand Internationally, performance in school Mathematics has been found to be a reliable predictor of performance in commerce courses at university level. Based on the predictive power of school-leaving marks, universities use results from school-leaving Mathematics examinations to rank student applicants according to their predicted abilities. However, in 2008 the structure and scope of school-leaving examinations changed in South Africa from the former Senior Certificate (SC) to the new National Senior Certificate (NSC). This structural break seems to create fluctuations in the signalling ability of the schoolleaving marks. South African universities are unsure about how well the current NSC Mathematics marks reflect the underlying numerical competence of students, given that a high number of the 2009 student intake failed their first-year core courses across faculties. This paper estimates a deflator for the new NSC Mathematics marks relative to the former Higher Grade (HG) Mathematics marks, by comparing performance in similar first tests of two commerce subjects, Economics 1 and Computational Mathematics, between the 2008 and 2009 first-year cohorts. The results indicate that the signalling ability of the NSC Mathematics marks is reduced significantly. Instead of differentiating students according to their abilities, the new NSC Mathematics marks compress students with a wide range of abilities and disabilities into a very narrow range of percentage marks. http://196.255.246.28/index.php/pie/article/view/22University admissionFirst-year commerce coursesMatric mathematicsNational Senior CertificateAcademic abilityAbility signalling |
| spellingShingle | Volker Schöer Miracle Ntuli Neil Rankin Claire Sebastiao Karin Hunt A blurred signal? The usefulness of National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics marks as predictors of academic performance at university level Perspectives in Education University admission First-year commerce courses Matric mathematics National Senior Certificate Academic ability Ability signalling |
| title | A blurred signal? The usefulness of National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics marks as predictors of academic performance at university level |
| title_full | A blurred signal? The usefulness of National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics marks as predictors of academic performance at university level |
| title_fullStr | A blurred signal? The usefulness of National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics marks as predictors of academic performance at university level |
| title_full_unstemmed | A blurred signal? The usefulness of National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics marks as predictors of academic performance at university level |
| title_short | A blurred signal? The usefulness of National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics marks as predictors of academic performance at university level |
| title_sort | blurred signal the usefulness of national senior certificate nsc mathematics marks as predictors of academic performance at university level |
| topic | University admission First-year commerce courses Matric mathematics National Senior Certificate Academic ability Ability signalling |
| url | http://196.255.246.28/index.php/pie/article/view/22 |
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