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.

Key term: Predictive Ability, Student Performance