Falling Pass Rate In Australia Essay
Falling Pass Rate in Australian Universities
Table of Content 1. Introduction 2 2. Reasons of Falling Pass Rate 3 2.1 Lower entry requirement 3 2.2 Progressive Assessment 3 2.3 Larger Classes 4 3. Recommendations 5 3.1 Enhance the Enter Requirements 5 3.2 Improve the Progressive Assessment 5 3.3 Peer Support System 6 4. Conclusion 7 Reference 8 Appendix 9
1. Introduction
Tertiary education plays an important role in Australia's economy. Nowadays, evidence reveals that a falling pass rate has occurred in Acme University for the past few years. Such situation should trigger the attention of both educators and students, especially the first year students. It is widely accepted that gap between high school …show more content…
and tertiary education is inevitable. Eliminating such a gap and achieving an acceptable learning performance are what new students are in pursuit of. The main objective of this report is to identify the potential causes of such phenomenon and provide reasonable recommendations to increase the pass rate.
(Word Count: 99) 2. Reasons of Falling Pass Rate 2.1 Lower entry requirement
The first potential reason of the falling pass rate could be the lower entry requirement. In the result of K. Wimshurst and T. Allard, it indicates that university enter score contributes more to the fail grades, comparing to other factors such as gender, living at home or deferring student fees, especially in the first-year university. Besides, foreign students with poor English skills are not able to complete their courses, due to the lower international benchmarks in English language.
On the other hand, universities like Melbourne, Monash, La Trobe and so on, are offering up to 20 points score discount if a student is willing to pay full fees. Since 2006, the full-fee paid students with five or more marks lower than the equivalent HECS students, were able to enrol more than 80 undergraduate degrees (Herald Sun, 2006). The trend is found still continuing and reinforced in the recent years. Therefore, quite a few international students and rich kids are getting easier to enter into universities, with much lower enter point.
In addition, statistics shows that the number of international students enrolled in the higher education sector has increased with a growth of 7.6% from 2009. With a larger amount of international students, who are allowed to get easier rides into Australian university with a lower enter score and relatively poor English skills, the pass rate is supposed to fall down gradually.
2.2 Progressive Assessment
Progressive assessment education system is another important factor that causes such a situation with falling pass rate in universities. The main characteristics of progressive assessment include assessments across the semester contribute increasingly more weigh to the total score instead of focusing on the final examination; multiple choice questions (MCQs) are exclusively used in the mid-term test; learning diaries are in use. The shortcomings of MCQ tests are obvious such as they can not reflect the writing skills, test students' critical abilities, and indicate their capacity to assess knowledge learned. In Alauddin 2010, it suggests that multiple choices (MCQ) are used more frequently in mid-semester tests, causing significantly reduced scores in the final exam. It is confirmed that on average students would lose 13.7 scores in the final exam if they have done MCQ-based-mid-term assessments in comparison with students who have not done those assessments. When the progressive assessments exceed 50% of total score, it would lead a student losing a further 18.1 marks in the final test. In other words, students who obtain a pass grade at the assessments through the semester would be more likely to fail in the final exam. These findings significantly provide a support to the view that assessment methods play an important role on affecting the students' performance (Tian, 2007).
2.3 Larger Classes
First year students have a significant possibility receiving fail grades in large classes, according to Mohammad A & Asaduzzaman K. They have found that if the class-size is increased by one student, final examination score would drop by 0.03 marks. Larger classes could make a distinct influence on those students who do not perfectly accommodate new study environment, requirements and course styles, afterwards leading to less concentration and efficiency. In contrast, smaller class might be more conductive for meeting individual student needs.
With a growth on the number of students, the university has to set up larger classes, especially for those base-level courses in the first year, thus creating a less interactive learning environment. Therefore, fail rates of the freshmen in the Acme University has kept falling down probably due to the combined negative effect by the larger classes.
(Word Count: 586)
3. Recommendations
3.1 Enhance the Enter Requirements
The enter score often contains a considerable diversity of students’ academic background, which may be failed to provide an indication of performance of a particular major and courses. Thus besides a minimum enter score requirement, the university should ask for other criterions that better accord with courses characristics. For example, students applying for the engineering degree should at least have a command of basic mathematics and physics knowledge (Thomas, Henderson & Goldfinch, 2011). Besides, the university should push the English language benchmark even higher to maintain a higher education quality. Especially for those foreign students who have studied in the university language school or a college, should be required to reach that international standard before enroll the university.
3.2 Improve the Progressive Assessment
The execution of progressive assessments should be encouraged by the universities instead of being prohibited. As it provides more opportunities to review the knowledge gained through the semester, reinforces students' understanding, and sufficiently eliminates the heavy pressure for preparing the final examination. In order to overcome the downsides of progressive assessment, some essential adjustments are required. For example, short response questions (SRQs) should be the sole mode used in the mid-term test rather than MCQs. SRQs can not only reflect students' writing skills, not also represent their analytical and critical capacity. When it comes to international students, it remains as a challenge to express the exact comprehension about the questions. As the format of SRQs is in similarity to that of the final test, it could provide a better feedback about the students' performance. In addition, the feedback corresponding to each assessment should be provided to students timely, revealing the potential problems of the students. Moreover, the weight of progressive assessments should be re-designed in relation to the specific course.
3.3 Peer Support System
Peer support systems should be embedded into every tertiary education institution. The systems normally involve Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS), employing high-achieving students to manage study sessions for a small group of new students. (Schmidt, 2009) To obtain a high efficiency of studying, 6-15 students are participated in PASS. It is expected that the smaller the class-size, the more effort students would contribute into group discussion in order to obtain a high performance. Besides, PASS are able to improve the new students communication skulk, help them establish personal relationship and reduce the gap between high school and university life for the first year students.
(Word Count: 392) 4. Conclusion
Each factor mentioned above indicates different aspect of the current education system.
Lower entry score enlarges the difficulty to achieve satisfied performance; poor progressive assessments cause detrimental effect on the final exam; and large scale of class decreases participation of students. Accordingly, it is essential to rise entry score and set up pre-requisite subjects for particular courses, and embed Peer Assisted Study Sessions across the whole semester. Besides, a better establish progressive assessment system can have profound influence.
(Word Count: 78)
(Total Word Count: 1155)
Reference
Wimshurst, K. &Troy, A. 2008, Personal and institutional characteristics of student failure, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 33, No. 6, p. 687–698.
Thomas, G.& Henderson, A.& Thomas, G 2011, The influence of university entry scores on student performance in engineering mechanics, Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 17, No. 1, p.19-25.
Herald Sun (Melbourne), 2006, Full-fee students get score discount, 12 October, p.11, (online Factiva).
Alauddin, M.& Khan, A. 2010, Does performance in progressive assessment influence the outcome in final examination? An Australian experience, Educ Asse Eval Acc, 22:293–305
Tian, X. 2007, Do assessment methods matter? A sensitivity test, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 32,
387–401.
Schmidt, L. & Julia, M. 2009, Peer Assisted Study Sessions to Facilitate Transition for International Students, The International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, Vol. 9, No. 5.
Appendix
Full-fee students get score discount
Source:Herald Sun (Melbourne), 10/12/2006.
Accession Number:200610121011136612.
Database: Newspaper Source Plus
RICH kids are getting easier rides into university, with entry scores for full-fee paying courses up to 20 points lower than HECS degrees.
Deakin University's Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science has an ENTER of 62.45 for a full-fee paying degree, compared with 82.20 for HECS students.
Nursing, commerce/law, arts/law and primary-teaching courses at Deakin also have lower ENTER scores for students paying full-fee degrees.
Melbourne, Monash, La Trobe and RMIT universities offer score discounts for some courses if a student pays full fees, including bachelors of law/arts.
Federal opposition education spokesman Jenny Macklin said it was unfair that students with cash could jump the queue for universities.
``More than 80 full-fee undergraduate degrees at public universities, including 18 in Victoria, now enrol Australian students with five or more marks lower than the equivalent HECS place,'' she said.
``The Howard Government is hell-bent on Americanising our university system.''
Education Minister Julie Bishop said Labor's criticisms were hypocritical because they didn't mind overseas students paying, but denied Australians the same opportunity.
Copyright 2006 / Herald Sun
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Herald Sun (Melbourne), OCT 12, 2006
Item: 200610121011136612
.
--------------------------------------------
[ 1 ]. International Students in Australia, http://www.studiesinaustralia.com/
Table of Content 1. Introduction 2 2. Reasons of Falling Pass Rate 3 2.1 Lower entry requirement 3 2.2 Progressive Assessment 3 2.3 Larger Classes 4 3. Recommendations 5 3.1 Enhance the Enter Requirements 5 3.2 Improve the Progressive Assessment 5 3.3 Peer Support System 6 4. Conclusion 7 Reference 8 Appendix 9
1. Introduction
Tertiary education plays an important role in Australia's economy. Nowadays, evidence reveals that a falling pass rate has occurred in Acme University for the past few years. Such situation should trigger the attention of both educators and students, especially the first year students. It is widely accepted that gap between high school …show more content…
and tertiary education is inevitable. Eliminating such a gap and achieving an acceptable learning performance are what new students are in pursuit of. The main objective of this report is to identify the potential causes of such phenomenon and provide reasonable recommendations to increase the pass rate.
(Word Count: 99) 2. Reasons of Falling Pass Rate 2.1 Lower entry requirement
The first potential reason of the falling pass rate could be the lower entry requirement. In the result of K. Wimshurst and T. Allard, it indicates that university enter score contributes more to the fail grades, comparing to other factors such as gender, living at home or deferring student fees, especially in the first-year university. Besides, foreign students with poor English skills are not able to complete their courses, due to the lower international benchmarks in English language.
On the other hand, universities like Melbourne, Monash, La Trobe and so on, are offering up to 20 points score discount if a student is willing to pay full fees. Since 2006, the full-fee paid students with five or more marks lower than the equivalent HECS students, were able to enrol more than 80 undergraduate degrees (Herald Sun, 2006). The trend is found still continuing and reinforced in the recent years. Therefore, quite a few international students and rich kids are getting easier to enter into universities, with much lower enter point.
In addition, statistics shows that the number of international students enrolled in the higher education sector has increased with a growth of 7.6% from 2009. With a larger amount of international students, who are allowed to get easier rides into Australian university with a lower enter score and relatively poor English skills, the pass rate is supposed to fall down gradually.
2.2 Progressive Assessment
Progressive assessment education system is another important factor that causes such a situation with falling pass rate in universities. The main characteristics of progressive assessment include assessments across the semester contribute increasingly more weigh to the total score instead of focusing on the final examination; multiple choice questions (MCQs) are exclusively used in the mid-term test; learning diaries are in use. The shortcomings of MCQ tests are obvious such as they can not reflect the writing skills, test students' critical abilities, and indicate their capacity to assess knowledge learned. In Alauddin 2010, it suggests that multiple choices (MCQ) are used more frequently in mid-semester tests, causing significantly reduced scores in the final exam. It is confirmed that on average students would lose 13.7 scores in the final exam if they have done MCQ-based-mid-term assessments in comparison with students who have not done those assessments. When the progressive assessments exceed 50% of total score, it would lead a student losing a further 18.1 marks in the final test. In other words, students who obtain a pass grade at the assessments through the semester would be more likely to fail in the final exam. These findings significantly provide a support to the view that assessment methods play an important role on affecting the students' performance (Tian, 2007).
2.3 Larger Classes
First year students have a significant possibility receiving fail grades in large classes, according to Mohammad A & Asaduzzaman K. They have found that if the class-size is increased by one student, final examination score would drop by 0.03 marks. Larger classes could make a distinct influence on those students who do not perfectly accommodate new study environment, requirements and course styles, afterwards leading to less concentration and efficiency. In contrast, smaller class might be more conductive for meeting individual student needs.
With a growth on the number of students, the university has to set up larger classes, especially for those base-level courses in the first year, thus creating a less interactive learning environment. Therefore, fail rates of the freshmen in the Acme University has kept falling down probably due to the combined negative effect by the larger classes.
(Word Count: 586)
3. Recommendations
3.1 Enhance the Enter Requirements
The enter score often contains a considerable diversity of students’ academic background, which may be failed to provide an indication of performance of a particular major and courses. Thus besides a minimum enter score requirement, the university should ask for other criterions that better accord with courses characristics. For example, students applying for the engineering degree should at least have a command of basic mathematics and physics knowledge (Thomas, Henderson & Goldfinch, 2011). Besides, the university should push the English language benchmark even higher to maintain a higher education quality. Especially for those foreign students who have studied in the university language school or a college, should be required to reach that international standard before enroll the university.
3.2 Improve the Progressive Assessment
The execution of progressive assessments should be encouraged by the universities instead of being prohibited. As it provides more opportunities to review the knowledge gained through the semester, reinforces students' understanding, and sufficiently eliminates the heavy pressure for preparing the final examination. In order to overcome the downsides of progressive assessment, some essential adjustments are required. For example, short response questions (SRQs) should be the sole mode used in the mid-term test rather than MCQs. SRQs can not only reflect students' writing skills, not also represent their analytical and critical capacity. When it comes to international students, it remains as a challenge to express the exact comprehension about the questions. As the format of SRQs is in similarity to that of the final test, it could provide a better feedback about the students' performance. In addition, the feedback corresponding to each assessment should be provided to students timely, revealing the potential problems of the students. Moreover, the weight of progressive assessments should be re-designed in relation to the specific course.
3.3 Peer Support System
Peer support systems should be embedded into every tertiary education institution. The systems normally involve Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS), employing high-achieving students to manage study sessions for a small group of new students. (Schmidt, 2009) To obtain a high efficiency of studying, 6-15 students are participated in PASS. It is expected that the smaller the class-size, the more effort students would contribute into group discussion in order to obtain a high performance. Besides, PASS are able to improve the new students communication skulk, help them establish personal relationship and reduce the gap between high school and university life for the first year students.
(Word Count: 392) 4. Conclusion
Each factor mentioned above indicates different aspect of the current education system.
Lower entry score enlarges the difficulty to achieve satisfied performance; poor progressive assessments cause detrimental effect on the final exam; and large scale of class decreases participation of students. Accordingly, it is essential to rise entry score and set up pre-requisite subjects for particular courses, and embed Peer Assisted Study Sessions across the whole semester. Besides, a better establish progressive assessment system can have profound influence.
(Word Count: 78)
(Total Word Count: 1155)
Reference
Wimshurst, K. &Troy, A. 2008, Personal and institutional characteristics of student failure, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 33, No. 6, p. 687–698.
Thomas, G.& Henderson, A.& Thomas, G 2011, The influence of university entry scores on student performance in engineering mechanics, Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 17, No. 1, p.19-25.
Herald Sun (Melbourne), 2006, Full-fee students get score discount, 12 October, p.11, (online Factiva).
Alauddin, M.& Khan, A. 2010, Does performance in progressive assessment influence the outcome in final examination? An Australian experience, Educ Asse Eval Acc, 22:293–305
Tian, X. 2007, Do assessment methods matter? A sensitivity test, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 32,
387–401.
Schmidt, L. & Julia, M. 2009, Peer Assisted Study Sessions to Facilitate Transition for International Students, The International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, Vol. 9, No. 5.
Appendix
Full-fee students get score discount
Source:Herald Sun (Melbourne), 10/12/2006.
Accession Number:200610121011136612.
Database: Newspaper Source Plus
RICH kids are getting easier rides into university, with entry scores for full-fee paying courses up to 20 points lower than HECS degrees.
Deakin University's Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science has an ENTER of 62.45 for a full-fee paying degree, compared with 82.20 for HECS students.
Nursing, commerce/law, arts/law and primary-teaching courses at Deakin also have lower ENTER scores for students paying full-fee degrees.
Melbourne, Monash, La Trobe and RMIT universities offer score discounts for some courses if a student pays full fees, including bachelors of law/arts.
Federal opposition education spokesman Jenny Macklin said it was unfair that students with cash could jump the queue for universities.
``More than 80 full-fee undergraduate degrees at public universities, including 18 in Victoria, now enrol Australian students with five or more marks lower than the equivalent HECS place,'' she said.
``The Howard Government is hell-bent on Americanising our university system.''
Education Minister Julie Bishop said Labor's criticisms were hypocritical because they didn't mind overseas students paying, but denied Australians the same opportunity.
Copyright 2006 / Herald Sun
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Herald Sun (Melbourne), OCT 12, 2006
Item: 200610121011136612
.
--------------------------------------------
[ 1 ]. International Students in Australia, http://www.studiesinaustralia.com/