The Impact of Tertiary Students' Entry Characteristics and their Academic Performance

This article examines the effect of tertiary students’ entry characteristicson academic performance using the ‘value added’ approach and METPolytechnic, Ghana as a case study. The input-process–output-contextframework presented in the Global Monitoring Report (2005) by Scheerenswas used to select appropriate variables for the study. The studyfocused on three generic courses - African Studies, Communicative Skills,and Computer Literacy. Data from different sources, including secondarydata and administrative records from the Polytechnic were analysed usingmultilevel analysis. The overall effect of the selected variables was mixedand outcomes specific. For example, English language impacted positivelyon African Studies but negatively on second-semester Computer Literacy,while age and gender had a negative effect on first-semester ComputerLiteracy. Although the findings may not directly benefit analogous institutions,several lessons, including the need to create appropriate institutionaldatasets for future comparisons across institutions can be learnt. Key words: Age, gender, department context, previous achievement, SES,‘value added’.