1 Introduction

The seven-point rating scale for the Admission Points Score (APS) used by all higher education institutions in South Africa to determine which students to admit stems from legislation [1] introduced in 2005 and first applied in 2009 following the first issue of the National Senior Certificate (NSC), that is the final school exit level. The NSC is a 130-credit certificate based on a minimum of seven subjects that each carry 20 credits except for Life Orientation that carries 10 credits. The APS is calculated on the points for percentage achieved in the NSC with 7 for 80–100%, 6 for 70–79%, 5 for 60–69%, 4 for 50–59%, 3 for 40–49%, 2 for 30–39% and 1 for 0–29%.

Four of the minimum seven subjects are compulsory and include two official languages, mathematics or mathematical literature and life orientation. The other three required subjects are chosen from a list of 20 approved subjects. The minimum admission requirement for a bachelor’s degree is adequate achievement (50–59%) or better in four of the selected subjects. Institutions are however entitled to require appropriate subject achievement levels for specific programs [2].

Being a Bachelor of Science degree, specific subject requirements are stipulated for the BSc QS degree offered by the Department of Construction Economics at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. The specific subjects required are English and Mathematics at an achievement level of 5 (60–69%) and Physical Science or Accounting at an achievement level of 4 (50–59%) [3]. The current required APS of 30 is typically derived from the minimum of 14 points for the compulsory subjects and a further 16 points for the three selected subjects at an achievement level of 5 (60–69%) each. No distinction is made in the weighting that any subject contributes to the APS other than the point corresponding to the percentage achieved on the seven-level points scale. Increasing the APS to 32 entail that the achievement level of any two of the six subjects that contribute to the calculation of the APS is increased by one achievement level.

2 Literature

The conundrum of admitting the right number of students as well as the right student that have the ability and the potential to successfully complete their chosen programs is universal. Many international and South African studies have found that school-level mathematics is strongly correlated with quantitatively orientated modules at university level hence admission requirements are set accordingly [4].

Several South African studies have been conducted to evaluate the NSC’s ability to predict learner’s preparedness to cope with university curricula. One such a study that focused on the NSC mathematics results as a predictor of academic performance [5] suggests that the APS is not correctly benchmarked against the system applied prior to 2008 and found that the NSC mathematics results are in the order of 12–13% higher than the previous higher-grade mathematics. It is also found that the NSC is not an accurate predictor in the lower scoring categories.

Contrary to the finding of the discrepancy in benchmarking the APS against the system that applied prior to 2008, an analysis of first-year engineering student’s results for mathematics 1 and physics 1 at the University of Cape Town from 2005 to 2009 found that the declining trend in mathematics results cannot be attributed to the NSC as the trend was already visible in 2007 [6].

In another study that included all the faculties at the university of KwaZulu Natal it was found that the risk of failure is significantly higher as the NSC mathematics marks decrease in the engineering, health sciences and management sciences faculties. The importance of this study is the illustration of how the results for different faculties vary from each other. It is apparent that a one-size-fits-all approach cannot be followed [7].

A comparison between the NSC mathematics mark and the National Benchmark Test (NBT) (a set of three tests performed to determine the academic preparedness of applicants by testing academic literacy, quantitative literacy and mathematics) as predictors for the results of an Economics 1 test at two universities revealed that the NSC mathematics mark on its own marginally remained the better predictor for academic potential, but that a combination of the NSC mathematics mark and the NBT improves the prediction ability significantly [4].

3 The Methodology

The aim of the study was to establish whether the pursuit of a better throughput rate of enrolled students is supported by increasing the APS from 30 to 32.

The study compared the overall academic school performance against academic undergraduate performance, using data from the program’s first year entrant cohorts from 2010 to 2015. The data was categorized into two groups - Group 1 (totaling 240 students with an APS of 32+) and Group 2 (totaling 121 students with an APS < 32) to establish if Group 1 students performed significantly better than Group 2 students.

The study explored the relationships between the APS and the years taken to complete the program, the weighted average marks obtained in the first year of the program, the number of students that passed with distinction (75%+) and the marks obtained in a core module with a high failure rate.

4 The Data and Findings

The number of first-time entering BSc QS students from 2010 to 2015 totaled 361 varying between a minimum cohort of 53 students in 2011 to a maximum of 69 students in 2015 (see Table 1).

Table 1. Number of first-time entering students for BSc QS program.
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4.1 Throughput of Students

The study first considered the % of BSc QS students that managed to qualify in the minimum period of three years (see Table 2 and Fig. 1). The findings for Group 1 students show an average of 61,2% and for Group 2 an average of 23,1% that means that a Group 1 student is 265,03% more likely than a Group 2 student to qualify in the minimum time (61,17%/23,08% × 100/1).

Table 2. % of students qualifying in 3 years
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Fig. 1.
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% of students qualifying in 3 years

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The study also evaluated the average time spent in the program by qualifying students. Table 3 indicates that on average Group 2 students took 17,65% longer to qualify ((4,20/3,57−1) × 100/1).

Table 3. % of students qualifying
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4.2 Weighted Average Marks Obtained

The s the average overall mark that each student achieved in their first year in the program, is weighted according to the credits for each respective module. Table 4 shows that on average Group 1 students outscored Group 2 students by 26,54% ((56,03%/44,28% − 1) × 100/1).

Table 4. Weighted average marks in 1st year of study
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4.3 Number of Students that Passed with Distinction

The number of students that managed to pass with distinction (75%+ in final year) is detailed in Table 5. A total number of 44 students qualified with distinction, only 1 student (2,27%) was from Group 2.

Table 5. Number of students that qualified with distinction
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4.4 Performance in Quantities 101

Quantities 101 is a core module for first year BSc QS students and unique to construction economic qualifications. Over many years the module has had a high failure rate and low average class marks. Failure of this module automatically increases the time of study by a year. As illustrated in Table 6 an average of 80,50% of Group 1 students successfully completed Quantities 101 in their first attempt compared to 62,12% for Group 2. Group 1 students were therefore 29,59% more likely to pass in their first attempt than Group 2 ((80,50%/62,12% − 1) × 100/1). The average mark of Group 1 students was 53,32% which exceeded the average mark of Group 2 students of 43,26% by 23,25% ((53,32%/43,26%−1) × 100/1).

Table 6. Performance in quantities 101
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5 Conclusions

The study found a significant difference in academic performance between students with an APS of 32 and more (Group 1) compared to students with an APS of 31 and less (Group 2). This difference is apparent and constant for each of the different parameters used for evaluation.

Increased throughput is the desired academic objective and Group 1 students are 265,03% more likely than Group 2 students to qualify in the minimum time. Group 2 students take on average 17,65% longer to graduate from the program. The average mark in the first year of study for Group 1 students was 26,54% higher than the mark for Group 2 students. All but 1 of the 44 students that graduated with distinction were from Group 1. Group 1 students were also 29,59% more likely than Group 2 students to pass the core first year module Quantities 101 on their first attempt and their average mark outscored that of Group 2 students by 23,25%.

It is apparent that the findings of this study concur with the findings of other studies referred to in the literature review in that the higher the NSC achievement, particularly the mathematics achievement, the higher the APS, the more successful the students would be in their studies. Group 1, that already complies with the higher APS of 32 represents 66% of the 361 students under review. Their achievements outlined above suggest that an increased APS would probably not have a detrimental effect on the BSc QS program intake, but rather enhance the throughput of the entire future groups.

6 Recommendations

On conclusion of the study it is recommended that the study be expanded to cohorts of 2016 onwards to determine whether the downward trend of performance continues, that the study be extended to other institutions nationally that offer a similar qualification, that the study be expanded to include the other programs in the Department of Construction Economics, to repeat the study in order to tract the trends in the rapidly changing demography of South African and identify and study other causes that could explain the variability in student performance.