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Browsing Articles by Subject "Academic performance"

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    Admission path, family structure and outcomes in Ghana’s public universities: evidence from KNUST students enrolled in the social sciences
    (The International Journal of Higher Education Research, 2017) Ofori-Abebrese, Grace; Yusif, Hadrat
    At the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana, first year enrolment increased by 1466.81% from 708 in 1961/1962 to 11,093 in 2011. In the 2013/2014 academic year, the total student population was 45,897. There are now five main admission paths, comprising regular, mature, fee paying, less endowed, and protocol/staff admissions. The number of dropouts and fails has risen steeply, for example, at the end of the 2013/2014 academic year, roughly 22.11% of the 1239 students were either withdrawn or repeated at the Faculty of Social Sciences due to non-performance. This paper examined the impact of the admission path and family structure on university students’ academic outcomes. A logistic model was applied to individual-level data obtained from 1000 students enrolled at the Faculty of Social Sciences in the university. The results indicated that the regular and mature admission paths have a positive impact on performance whilst the fee-paying admission path has a significant negative influence on academic performance. It wasalsofoundthatthefamilystructure(livingwiththefatherandmotherandthemotheronly) has a significant positive influence on performance. The study recommended that lecturers should bemotivated to conductadditionalclasses foracademicallyweakstudents.Counselling units should also identify students who experienced disruption in home life and raise their aspirations.