A Multivariate Evaluation of Mainstream and Academic Development Courses in First‐year Microeconomics

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of the University of Cape Town's first-year microeconomics academic development course on performance in examinations. The paper makes two advances to existing empirical literature in this area. Firstly, we compare performance with a control group drawn from the mainstream economic course. Secondly, we evaluate performance in subsequent courses in first-year macroeconomics and second-year microeconomics. The results suggest that the academic development course has a major impact on students' performance in the structured/essay questions, relative to the control group, in first- and second-year microeconomics, and for the multiple-choice questions in first-year macroeconomics. Copyright (c) 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2007 Economic Society of South Africa.

Measuring the success of an academic development programme: A statistical analysis

“…The data for four years (1999)(2000)(2001)(2002) is pooled, which results in a more robust set of estimations than is previously the case. The student's career at university is viewed as a production process whereby graduation performance is a function of a variety of inputs (Edwards 2000;Smith and Edwards 2007;Smith 2009). This relationship can be represented as:…”

“…Following Edwards (2000), Smith (2004), Van Walbeek (2004), Smith and Edwards (2007) and Smith (2009), a modified version of the matriculation points score is used as a measure of academic ability.…”

“…These have taken a variety of forms including bridging courses, extra tutorials and additional courses, usually in English and mathematics (Walker and Badsha 1993;Volbrecht 1999;Edwards 2000;Smith 2004;Smith and Edwards 2007). The main aim of these interventions is to enable students from disadvantaged academic and socioeconomic backgrounds to develop their literacy, quantitative and study skills so that they are able to achieve success in a particular course, and ultimately, a higher education qualification.…”

“…However, despite the pervasiveness of these interventions it is fair to say that relatively few South African studies have tested the effectiveness of a development course or programme, in the commerce faculty, in improving students' performance in individual courses and their graduation rates (Smith 2004;Smith and Edwards 2007;Smith 2009). …”

“…These studies were largely analytical, or used simple correlation analysis. Smith (2004), Smith and Edwards (2007) and Smith (2009) tested the efficacy of an academic development course in first-year microeconomics, at the University of Cape Town, relative to a control group drawn from the mainstream. 1 The efficacy of the course was measured in terms of course success in the current and in subsequent courses in economics, conditional on a number of control variables.…”