To what extend can we predict students' performance? A case study in colleges in South Africa

Abstract

Student performance depends upon factors other than intrinsic ability, such as environment, socio-economic status, personality and familial-context. Capturing these patterns of influence may enable an educator to ameliorate some of these factors, or for governments to adjust social policy accordingly. In order to understand these factors, we have undertaken the exercise of predicting student performance, using a cohort of approximately 8,000 South African college students. They all took a number of tests in English and Maths. We show that it is possible to predict English comprehension test results from (1) other test results; (2) from covariates about self-efficacy, social economic status, and specific learning difficulties there are 100 survey questions altogether; (3) from other test results + covariates (combination of (1) and (2)); and from (4) a more advanced model similar to (3) except that the covariates are subject to dimensionality reduction (via PCA). Models 1-4 can predict student performance up to a standard error of 13-15%. In comparison, a random guess would have a standard error of 17%. In short, it is possible to conditionally predict student performance based on self-efficacy, socio-economic background, learning difficulties, and related academic test results.