First Year Experience in Higher Education

Addressing concerns with the NSC: An analysis of first-year student performance in Mathematics and Physics

by Renee Smit

Co-authored with Nicky Wolmarans, Brandon Colilier-Reed and Hilda Leather. Published in the Proceedings of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Southern African Association for Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education. 18-21 January 2010. p. 274

In this article we present a statistical comparison of the mid-year Mathematics and Physics results for students ... more In this article we present a statistical comparison of the mid-year Mathematics and Physics results for students  in  the  University  of  Cape  Town’s  engineering  programmes  over  a  five  year  period.  The particular focus is on the disaggregated group of students who wrote the 2008 NSC examinations in comparison with other groups. Concerns were raised after the 2008 NSC Mathematics results showed
a  marked  increase  in  high  marks  resulting  in  more  students  meeting  the  engineering  entrance requirements than in previous years. Scepticism about the NSC Mathematics results and the related increased  intake  of  first  year  students  has  lead  to  speculation  about  the  reasons  for  weak  mid-year Mathematics  I  and  Physics  I  results.  This  study  draws  its  empirical  data  from  the  mid-year  course results for the years 2009, 2007 and 2005. The results indicate that the South African matriculants who
moved directly from school to university, show a marked decline in both Mathematics and Physics. However, the 2007 Mathematics results for the South African students indicate that this decline cannot only be attributed to the 2008 matriculation examinations. The data also suggests that increasing the university entry criteria based on NSC marks may not have a marked effect on the performance of the
first year students.