Predictive Ability of Advanced Secondary School Students’ Performance to First Year Undergraduate Students’ Performance: The Case of University of Dar es Salaam Business School Students

Abstract

There has been a complaint that a number of students admitted to various universities have been failing to complete their university studies, even though, they met the admission criterion. This study aimed at evaluating the predictive ability of advanced secondary school students’ performanceto their first year undergraduate performance. The good pass marks are the only selection criteria to join university. Data were collected form University of Dare es Salaam students’ academic record database for 928 students for 2010/2011 and 2011/ 2012 academic years. Data were analyzedthrough regression analysis to predict the university students’ performance based on their entry qualifications.Results indicated that there was a positive correlation between undergraduate performance (outcome variable) and theirentry qualification performance, whether analysis is done by sex or year of examination, subject combinations. In addition, it was found that only a tenth of undergraduate student’s performance was explained by their entry level performance. The study recommends establishing other factors that affect university students’ performance before selecting them to join for university education.