Admission policy in universities: In search of empirical evidence
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH
Abstract
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This study set out to verify the hypothesis that ‘mature undergraduate students, in terms
of chronological age, would signifi cantly perform better than immature undergraduate
students academically’. Data on 679 undergraduate students were utilised in the study,
out of which 375 were females and 304 were males. Their age ranged from 14 to 22
years with standard deviation of 1.2 while mean age was 17.05 years. The Grade Point
Averages [GPA] for 100 level and 200 level first and second semesters, called alpha
and omega semesters in this study, were utilised. The parametric statistics employed
for analysis was the analysis of variance [ANOVA] which compared the GPA of the
least, average and most mature students categorised with age range of 14-16, 17-18,
19-22 years respectively. The result showed that the least mature students, in terms of
chronological age, consistently featured significantly higher academic performance than
the average and most mature students (Mean Diff. = 0.153, p = 0.033 for 100 level
alpha; Mean Diff. = 0.192, p = 0.0 for 200 level alpha). This finding tends to put to
question the rationale for the adoption of the policy of not admitting applicants below
age 16 into public universities on the ground of immaturity. © IJSTR 2019.
Keywords
BF Psychology, HM Sociology