CHAPTER ONE: ORIENTATION AND OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
2.4 PRE-ENROLMENT FACTORS AND BECOMING ‘AT RISK OF ACADEMIC FAILURE IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Literature suggests that in the South African context some students perform poorly in Higher Education as a result of insufficient preparation for the academic demands of Higher Education (Ross, 2010; Coetzee & Johl, 2009; van der Merwe & de Beer, 2006). There are pre-enrolment risk factors that contribute to student performance in Higher Education. These pre-enrolment factors include: family instability, socio-economic status, under preparation for higher education, personal challenges, under-resourced schools and parenting (Barr
& Parrett, 2001). According to Paxton (2007), poor performance is caused by students entering Higher Education and not having mastery over new discourses to be learnt. Other studies show that unsatisfactory performance in Higher Education is caused by first-intake student with matric results which are below the average performance (Cliff, Ramaboa & Pearce, 2007; Weideman, 2003). In my opinion, performance entry score is not the only measure of how well the student will perform in higher education. Some students who enter higher institution with good matric results also experience academic failure.
Family support in terms of financial provision at university level also plays an important role in student success (Steyn, 2009). Other studies show that parental involvement creates encouragement and a caring educational environment for student success (Downing, Kwong, Chan, Lam & Downing, 2009). In my experience, when parents take an interest and get involved in their children’s education it stimulate motivation and the urge to do well. This shows that there is a link between the microsystem and student success. This perspective is in agreement with the microsystem of Ecosystemic theory because it involves the family, classroom, neighbourhood or systems in the immediate environment in which a person is operating. In my view, as much as family support has a bigger role in terms of motivation, and caring but lack of family support may become a motivational factor. This motivational factor may result in student developing resiliency from a range of difficulties and circumstances and become intrinsically motivated and see success as the way out of difficulties.
The type of primary and secondary school is one of the main factors that impacts greatly on student success such as how well-resourced the school is, how content is taught and teaching skills, intensity of curriculum and effectiveness of students engagement in teaching and learning ( Horn, Kojaku and Carroll , 2001; Martinez &
Klopott, 2003; Warburton, Bugarin & Nunez, 2001).
Frymier (1992) conducted a study called the Phi Delta Kappa national study of at-risk factors. The purpose of the study was to show a scale for predicting risk among young people. He concluded with five risk factors that
emerged through the analysis and these included i) personal pain, ii) academic failure, iii) socio-economic status of the family, iv) family instability, and v) family tragedy. Another study by Rush and Vitale (1994) developed a profile for determining ‘at-risk’ elementary school students by using teacher surveys of 5, 250 students in Grades 1-5 within a single school district. Eight factors emerged from a factor analysis that accounted for 53% of the variance. The eight factors that formed the profile were: i) academically at-risk, ii) behavior and coping skills, iii) being socially withdrawn, iv) family income, v) parenting, (vi) language development, vii) retention, and viii) attendance (Baditoi, 2005). The findings above show that factors that influence student performance are expanding to include socio-economic status, family instability, personal factors and language development.
In South Africa, the majority of students at school level, who are second-language speakers of English, experiences challenges in the use of English as a language of instruction. Research shows that non-English speakers are not below average in cognitive ability but other barriers to learning compromise their academic success. Ushie, Emeka, Ononga, and Owolabi (2012), state that the degrees of complexity of the students’
background could influence, for example, their ability to deal with academic language and engage with the content, with students from a less sophisticated background encountering more difficulty in effectively employing skills and the language of academia. Risk factors that influence academic achievement do not only emanate from an individual and cognitive ability but also from external factors.
Risk factors that influence academic achievement emanate from secondary sources, such as career choices, module choices, orientation and induction programmes. Career choices partially can impact negatively on a student’s performance. According to Martinez and Munday (1998), making wrong choices before entering higher education is the main factor to withdrawal and non-completion of academic programmes. Students start to make choices about which institution, course of study before entering higher education. Some rely on friends, family, schools and community for information. McInnis et al. (2000) observed that “many students are seriously under-informed on key issues about their choice of an institution” as they rely on word of mouth, hearsay and vague impressions about institutions rather than well-founded, adequate information. According to Rickinson and Rutherford (1996), students who lack pre-information regarding career choices end up changing modules or phase specialization or move from one degree to another. Literature suggests that the problem lies with the schools in South Africa which are under-utilizing Life Orientation periods (Maree & Beck 2004).
Some schools use it to cover the syllabus for other subjects and other schools do not have qualified teachers to teach Life Orientation as a subject (Chireshe, 2012). The education the students receive should make them aware about the expectations and requirements of basic personal qualities to succeed in any occupation (Maree
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& Beck 2004). This does not only impact on throughput issues but also on the time factor. Literature shows that higher institutions, who are engaged in recruitment career advice roadshows of first intake, have rates of retention that are above the benchmarked levels (Yorke & Thomas, 2003). This is also maintained by Dodgson and Bolam (2002) who contend that some universities are making use of the summer and half term periods to prepare students for entry to Higher Education, with high rates of retention.
Bojuwoye and Mbanjwa (2006) conducted a study to investigate factors that influence career decisions. Results revealed that family variables of parental high expectations of children and appropriate communications within the family, as well as factors such as prestige statuses of some occupations, school curricular subjects, academic performance, teacher influences, and peer pressure had strong, positive influences on career choices. Barriers to career choices identified included finance, lack of appropriate information, poor academic performance and unsatisfactory career counselling services. The result of the study suggests the need for a better approach to career education in schools and counseling services that are adaptive to social, economic, and cultural contexts.
Therefore better strategies in both schools and higher institutions should be considered to provide students with necessary information to make sensible decisions when selecting a course or area of degree study.
Due to high competition for admission spaces in Higher Education, students end up choosing any career for the sake of being admitted. Opting for a last resort career usually has negative impacts on interest and attitude which may adversely affect academic performance (Maringe, 2006). Nevertheless, academic advice before registration and informative continuous orientation and an induction programme should assist students to integrate both socially and academically (Warren, 1998). Furthermore, Warren (1998) maintains that early engagement could include the provision of timetables, use of the library, course handbooks and reading lists, support services, or materials accessed via a virtual learning environment. This implies that if provision of career guidance at secondary school level and involvement of institutions in offering career guidance before and during enrolment are made, it may result in a high retention rate of students in higher education.
2.5 POST–ENROLMENT FACTORS AND BEING ‘AT RISK’ OF ACADEMIC FAILURE IN