ABSTRACT

The course on basic statistics is identified as one of the most challenging courses in tertiary educa- tion and has become a
bottleneck course in many private and public universities. One mechanism to avoid this and potentially improve the final
outcome of a student’s performance is to conduct early assessments. Monitoring the learners’ progress during the first half of the
semester is beneficial in planning and conducting interventions for students who are at risk of failing. Current challenges are
coupled which the Commission on Higher Education’s implementation of the K-12 Basic Education Program, which downloaded
basic statistics course topics to the senior high school curriculum. In this study, students in a basic statistics course offered by the
Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) at the University of the Philippines Los Baños during the 1st semester, AY 2013-2014 served as
subjects of the research. Data on student’s personal information were obtained from the INSTAT database with anonymity. Using
descriptive-associative analyses, this paper aimed to establish the relationship between student characteristics (e.g., degree
program enrolled in and scores in laboratory exercises) and the likelihood of passing or failing the course. A discriminant
function was also constructed to help identify if a student is at risk of failing the course and predict the risk of failing. Findings
revealed that the course taken as pre-requisite, degree program, and college where the student belongs to have varying effects on
the probability of failing the course. Moreover, topics on probability, off-office lecture and laboratory class schedule, and shorter
stay in the university tend to increase the likeli- hood of failing the course. The discriminant function constructed is a good tool to
identify potentially “at-risk-of-failing” students to be able to support and guide them before reaching the point of failure. These
results pose challenge to senior high school teachers and university faculty in terms of bridging the gap between the content of
secondary basic statistics or other related subjects and the delivery and handling of K-12 graduates enrolled in a tertiary applied
and degree-program statistics course.

Keywords: assessments, basic statistics, descriptive-associative, discriminant function