Are particular school subjects associated with better performance at university? Publications
Publication Details
This analysis looks at the association of school subject and school achievement on university performance. The school subjects considered are those on the ‘approved list’ of subjects for the New Zealand university entrance requirement.
Author(s): Ralf Engler, Tertiary Sector Performance Analysis, Ministry of Education.
Date Published: July 2010
Summary
- Higher performance at university is more closely related to how well students performed at school, rather than to the particular subjects they studied at school.
- This applied to a broad range of school subjects, and to nearly every field of study at university.
- There are some skills and knowledge that do appear to be important to performance at university. Mathematics at school is associated with better performance in mathematical science, chemistry with chemical science, English with studies in law. The strongest effect was for accounting students taking courses in accountancy.
- But what school subjects are taken is less important than how well students perform at school, and doing well in one school subject can offset doing poorly in another.
- The results of this study raises questions about the need to prescribe the subjects a student must take at school, as a general pre-condition for entry to university. A better approach is to consider how well a student achieves at school. This presumes that the school subjects a student takes include a broad range of academic skills. And if a student requires specific skills or knowledge in their university studies, or where having those skills gives the student an advantage, then taking particular subjects at school is likely to be beneficial.
- Basing entry to university on school achievement will improve student outcomes, but this should not be the only guide for entry to university. Previous studies, using the same cohort of students, have shown that some students with low school achievement, when they get to university, can outperform their peers who had higher school achievement.
This analysis looks at the association of school subject and school achievement on university performance. The school subjects considered are those on the 'approved list' of subjects for the New Zealand university entrance requirement.
There is a popular view that mathematics is linked to higher university performance in a range of degree-level studies. But in this study, we found that university performance overall is largely independent of what subjects are studied at school. Furthermore, this applies to a wide range of fields in degrees at university.
What we did find was that how well a student achieves in a school subject is strongly associated with university performance. Some subjects were marginally associated with higher university performance, but not in all fields of study. The strongest effect was consistently associated with increasing levels of school achievement.
In other words, for two students with the same level of school achievement, and enrolled in the same field of study, their university performance in most cases will be statistically indistinguishable. In only a few cases, one student will have slightly better university performance, and this is associated with that student taking a particular school subject. In these instances, there is a subject-matter link between the school subject and the degree study; mathematics for mathematical science study at university, chemistry for chemical science, or school accounting for accountancy. But the difference in performance is generally small. The largest differences in university performance occur between students with different school achievement.
This finding does not mean that the skills or knowledge gained in a subject are unimportant. If there are pre-requisite skills or knowledge required for a field of study, then those students with those skills and knowledge will be expected to do well. But, a student must take the class and achieve well if taking the subject is going to provide any subsequent benefit in their university studies.
Our findings have implications for universities. Universities are facing high levels of demand for degree level study, but their enrolments are constrained by the number of places funded by government. In response, some universities are altering their general admissions criteria, giving preference to students with higher levels of school achievement. While these changes will generally identify students more likely to perform well at university, the findings of our earlier study (Engler 2010) suggest the proposed changes will disadvantage particular groups of below-average students at school who, counter-intuitively, do well at university. The present study also suggests that requirements for achievement in a particular school subject is not necessary, at least for students who have met the university entrance requirement, since good achievement in one subject can offset poorer achievement in another.1
Our findings also have implications for the setting of the university entrance requirement. Currently, in New Zealand, the university entrance requirement for those less than 20 years of age requires a student to achieve credits in literacy and numeracy across the National Certificate of Education Achievement (NCEA) levels 1 and 2, in addition to gaining credits at level 3 of the National Qualification Framework in a prescribed list of subjects.2 Our study has shown that, at least for the subjects that are currently in the prescribed list, the actual subjects taken have little bearing on university performance. This conclusion must be tempered with our earlier caveats regarding specific skills and knowledge that may be assumed in particular university courses, and with the recognition that there may be some subjects that develop skills that have a lesser relationship with the sorts of skills needed in degree-level study.
We conclude that personal attitudes and traits such as motivation, study habits and time management skills also contribute to the basis of successful learning, whether it occurs in school or at university. These factors are clearly independent of the subject matter being studied, so it is not surprising to us that university performance is only weakly associated, if at all, with the subjects taken at school. It is the extent to which a student possesses these attitudes and traits which affect how well a student performs academically, whether at school or at university.
The study looked at intramural, first-year bachelors-degree students at a university. Each student had gained the NCEA level 3, and met the university entrance requirement. For a particular subject, students were excluded if they attained less than 14 credits in that subject. Students in the study varied between 17 and 20 years of age, and were studying at tertiary level in the years 2006 to 2008.
Footnotes
- We are not suggesting that universities are going to implement such a requirement.
- The list of 'approved subjects' is provided in Appendix A. More details can be found on the NZQA website.
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