ISSN 1329-2676

The Effects of Individual and School Factors on University Students Academic Performance

by

Rosemary Win and Paul W. Miller Business School The University of Western Australia

CLMR DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES 04/4

the Centre for Labour Market Research, The University of Western Australia, Crawley WA 6009 Tel: (08) 6488 8672 Fax: (08) 6488 8671 email: pmadden@ecel.uwa.edu.au http://www.clmr.ecel.uwa.edu.au The Centre wishes to acknowledge the support of The Western Australian Department of Education and Training

We are grateful to Greg Marie (Institutional Research Unit, UWA) and Ross Kelly (Centre for Labour Market Research) for provision of data, and to Ken Clements, Anh Le, Greg Marie, David Treloar, two anonymous referees and an editor for helpful comments. Miller acknowledges financial assistance from the Australian Research Council and the Department of Employment, Science and Training. Opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors, and should not be attributed to the funding agencies or to the University of Western Australia.

Abstract This paper examines the factors that influence university students academic performance, focusing on the role of student background and school factors. Using data on the first year students at the University of Western Australia in 2001, two methodologies are employed. The first is analogous to an input-output approach, and the second is a random coefficients model. A key finding is that high schools have an impact on the academic performance of students at university beyond students own background characteristics. Both immersion and reinforcement effects are identified. Introduction What factors determine a students academic achievement during their first year at university? University lecturers provide a variety of answers, including ability, motivation, the school the student went to and the company they keep. Of these factors, university administrators in Australia place most weight on ability, and currently ration places at their institutions largely on the basis of academic achievement in the final year of high school, namely Year 12. However, despite the importance to higher education decision making of knowledge of the determinants of university students performance1, there have been relatively few academic studies on this topic in Australia (exceptions that we draw upon later are West and Slamowicz, 1976 and Everett and Robins, 1991). This contrasts with Year 12 outcomes, which have been analysed in detail (see Rowe, 1999; Rowe, Turner and Lane, 1999; Collins, Kenway and McLeod, 2000; Teese, 2000; Marks et al., 2001). Academic performance at university can be viewed as a product of two sets of factors: one set having its origin in the individualeach students unique combination of socioeconomic elements and abilityand the other having its origin in the school attendedbeing associated with the systems of education and patterns of imparting knowledge that are organised within schools. This study seeks to ascertain the roles played by both these sets of influences. In doing so, it uses information on first year performance in 2001 of the students at the University of Western Australia (UWA). The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 considers the way in which contemporary educational research has developed and briefly discusses relevant empirical literature. Specific issues relating to two generations of research that exist in the education literature are highlighted in terms of how data are treated. Section 3 deals with data description and details the methodological structure. Section 4 presents and discusses the empirical results. A summary and conclusion are provided in Section 5. The Model Education is a service that attempts to develop the potential of students of different abilities. In this context the effectiveness of the education sector is generally defined to mean its impact on student performance. Most research to date has focused on the links between high schools and outcomes such as student academic achievement, earnings of graduates, and
Quantification of the influences on university students academic performance is relevant to policy making in a number of areas, including student admittance, retention rates, on extra support provision for students who might otherwise be disadvantaged, and at a more global level, evaluations of the success of the education system as a whole.
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employment beyond schooling (Rumberger and Thomas, 1993; Ehrenberg and Brewer, 1994; Akerhielm, 1995; Meyera, 1997; Jones and Zimmer, 2001). Very little attention has been given in the academic literature to investigating the student and school determinants of university students academic performance. However, university students academic performance can be analysed with the same methods used to quantify students achievements in high school. These methods can be viewed in terms of the individual-oriented input-output production function model outlined by Blau and Duncan (1967) that is representative of the early, or as they are sometimes termed in the literature, first generation, studies on school effectiveness (Hanushek, 1987; Kreft, 1993; Hill and Rowe, 1996). In this model, SAi is the scholastic achievement of student i. For example, this might be an overall indicator of academic performance such as a grade point average, or a mark obtained for a specific subject. Variations in SA across students are accounted for via the production function F( ) as follows: SAi = F (BCi , Sj) , i = 1, . , n, j = 1,, m. (1)

where BCi denotes the background characteristics, including measures of early childhood achievement, of the student and Sj denotes characteristics of the school attended by the ith student. A wide range of background characteristics (BCi) could be considered, including wealth and measures of early academic achievement. Included in Sj might be simple descriptors such as private or public school, and more detailed descriptors such as the resources available at the school attended (e.g. staff-student ratios, subject choice, extracurricular activities). Contextual characteristics (such as effects of teachers and peers) in relation to the individual rather than the school and exterior school characteristics (such as per-pupil expenditures, turnover of teachers, salaries, and physical facilities) can be added to equation (1) (see Murnane, 1975; Hauser, Swell and Alwin, 1976; Summers and Wolfe, 1977; Glasman and Biniaminov, 1981; Hauser, Tsai and Sewell, 1983). In this instance, the production function might be written as: SAi = F (BCi , SCi , Sj ) (2)

where SCi are the individuals perceptions of the school attended, for example, whether the teachers were effective. Indeed, the typical first generation study has employed estimating equations that are linearised versions of (2), namely: SAi = 0 + 1 BCi + 2 SCi + 3 Sj + i (3)

Hence, this traditional approach combines individual-level data with aggregated school-level explanatory variables. It ignores the fact that these data are organised within a well-defined hierarchy, where students are clustered within schools. Dealing with hierarchically structured data on a one-level basis presents many problems, including aggregation bias, undetected heterogeneity of regression among sub-units, misestimated parameter estimates and their standard errors, and the failure to satisfy the assumptions of independence required by singlelevel models (Hill and Rowe, 1996). Multicollinearity may be a problem, and can substantially complicate the analytical work.

More recent, so-called second generation, research has several defining characteristics, though the main one of interest to the current research is the methodology employed. Termed hierarchical linear modelling (HLM), the estimation procedures accommodate the specific ways the data have been generated. These models take as their starting point the relationship between individual-level variables only, namely: SAi = 0j + 1j BCi + i (4)

The school-level variables are indexed by j whereas the individual-level variables are indexed by i. In this model the intercept and slope parameters are treated as random parameters. Variation in these can be modelled using school-level data, as follows: 0j 1j = 0 + 0 Sj + j = 1 + 1 Sj + j 0 + 0 Sj and E (1j ) = 1 + 1 Sj (5) (6)

where E (0j ) =

The HLM is a refined statistical method to estimate the effects of collective attributes on individual behaviour (Kreft, 1993). The goal is to simultaneously analyse students within schools without losing the distinction between the levels so that appropriate inferences can be made to schools and to students. Therefore, all levels in the multilevel analysis are recognised and analysed in relation to one another (Kreft, 1993). Both first- and second-generation studies of the determinants of school performance have reported a range of important findings. These can be divided into two broad categories: the family background effects and the impact of different school types on scholastic achievement. The typical socio-demographic characteristics of families considered in empirical research on scholastic achievement include parental education, income and family size (Hanushek, 1987). It is generally reported that more educated and wealthier parents have children who perform better on average (Murnane, Maynard and Ohls, 1981; Hanushek, 1986). In particular, the skills of the mother, measured by the extent of her formal schooling, are found to be a critical resource in determining childrens achievement (Murnane, Maynard and Ohls, 1981). Murnane, Maynard and Ohls (1981) also found that goods inputs (which include things such as nutritious food, comfortable housing and reading materials that stimulate intellectual interests) in the home do not appear to have consistent effects on childrens learning. The studies of school effects on student achievement show that schools do matter to the performance of students in high school. In particular, the studies typically show that students at private schools have better academic performance than their counterparts at public schools. However, agreement has not been reached on the reasons for these differences in academic performance. The reasons advanced include differences in resource levels, academic organization and normative environments (Bryk et al., 1984; Lesko, 1988) and academic experiences (Lee and Bryk, 1988). The latter refer to track placement and the number of academic subjects taken. More specifically, Marks, McMillan and Hillman (2001, p.ix) argue that a higher level of confidence among students in their own ability, a school environment more conducive to learning, and higher parental aspirations for the students education contribute to lifting student achievement, as measured by tertiary entrance
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performance. The research reported below aims to discover whether these school effects extend into tertiary studies. Data Most of the data for this study are from details students provided at the time of entry to UWA. There are two broad types of students at commencement in UWA: (1) school-leavers who took the Western Australian Tertiary Entrance Examinations (TEE) as either full TEE or mature-age TEE candidates, and (2) those that are considered as non-school leavers. The majority of students who entered UWA are in the school-leaver category, and it is the focus of this study. It consists of the cohort of students who were in their first year of university in 2001 and in their final year of high school in 2000, but excludes non-school leavers (such as students who transferred from other UWA courses or other universities and full fee paying overseas students). School leavers represent 66.2 percent of the total first year student intake (3,293 students) in 2001, and non-school leavers make up the remaining 33.8 percent (1,113 students) (Statistics Office, 2001).2 Data on 2,180 first year students who entered UWA as school leavers are available, and the sample comprises students from all disciplines, with roughly equal numbers of males and females. Cases with missing values of variables included in the study are omitted. This leaves 1,803 students in the sample used in the statistical analyses, covering 54.75 percent of all first year students at UWA in 2001.3 Discussion on sample attrition is presented later in the paper. First-year academic performance is measured in this analysis by the weighted average firstyear mark (wtav1). This is computed as the mark obtained in each unit enrolled in after the dates specified for withdrawal from a unit without penalty, weighted by the relative contribution of the unit towards completion of the students degree program.4 The main explanatory variable is the students prior academic achievement, as measured by their Tertiary Entrance Rank (TER), or alternatively their Tertiary Entrance Score (TES). The maximum possible TES is 510 (Admissions Centre, 2003). The TER is calculated from the TES, and is a number between 0 and 99.95 that measures each years group of Year 12 students against each other. It is expected that there would be a strong positive relationship between the first year university performance and the TER (or TES). The TER has advantages for generalising the research reported below to include other states. Marks et al. (2001) show that where comparisons are made across states in Australia, a measure based on rank like the TER is more useful than the TES. Accordingly, results using the TER are reported in the text. The simple correlation between the TER and TES is 0.94, and so similar findings would be expected with the alternative regressor (and this is confirmed in the experiments reported in Appendix B). In 2001, UWA admitted new students with, in principle, a TER of 79.65 or more. However, there exist some students within the data set with TER below this cut-off mark. There are a number of reasons for this. One of them is the UWay scheme, whereby school-leaver
Of the non-school leavers, local non-school leavers make up 24.3 percent (801 students) and full fee paying overseas students make up the remaining 9.5 percent (312 students) (Statistics Office, 2001). 3 Appendix A lists all the variables used and identifies where the missing values are concentrated. 4 The first year marks are for the first full-year of study.
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applicants and applicants doing mature-age TEE who believe their academic achievement in Year 12 has been adversely affected by certain disadvantages are given special consideration (Prospective Students Office, 2000). Some of the disadvantages include attending a school where very few students aspire to tertiary education, education in rural and remote areas, a lack of supportive study environment at home, and having to care for family members. Other reasons include eligibility for the Universitys Programmes for Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders who do not meet the usual admission requirements, and students admitted due to the UWA Diversity and Merit Awards.5 Due to different levels of difficulties that are associated with different courses and limited availability of places, variations in cut-off rank exist across courses. Table 1 lists cut-off TER of all courses available at UWA in 2001. A range of other influences on student outcomes can be considered with the institutional data utilised in the study. As discussed in section 2, they include individual or level 1 variables, such as gender and home location, and school or level 2 variables, such as school type, school location, school size, and school sex (i.e., co-educational or single-sex school). The research by West and Slamowicz (1976), Trinca (1988) and Everett and Robins (1991) suggest that girls will outperform boys during the first year at UWA, and that students from Government schools will do better than students from other schools. Figure 1 illustrates the general patterns in the data in relation to this latter relationship. It shows Government school students outperforming students from Catholic and Other Independent6 schools at UWA when TER is held constant, which is the reverse of the lower levels of performance during high school for Government school students (see Marks et al., 2001).7 Several other sources of data are also used in this research. The first of these comprises the Index of Economic Resources (EconRes) and the Index of Education and Occupation (EduOcc) produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for each census using a broad range of social and economic characteristics of the population. These provide measures of socio-economic (SES) characteristics of students. In this analysis the regions are defined based on home postcodes, and the index scores have been standardised to have a mean of 1000 for the whole of Australia. The 1996 census data on SES are used since it was the most recent published indicator at the time the research was undertaken.8

There is no achievement penalty or benefit associated with entering university through special channels such as UWay. These students benefit from special induction and other general programs. Students entering under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander program are eligible for supplementary instruction and support programs. 6 From here on Other Independent schools will be simply referred to as Independent schools. 7 The difference in intercepts (from that for Government schools) in Figure 1 is statistically significant for both Catholic and Independent schools, though only Independent schools have a slope coefficient that is significantly different from that for Government schools. 8 Due to the nature of socio-economic characteristics, that are typically quite stable over the short- to mediumterms, using 1996 data to analyse the 2001 cohort of first year students should not have any significant disadvantages.

Table 1 Cut-off Tertiary Entrance Rank for Courses at UWA, 2001

Course Bachelor of: Science in Agriculture Science in Animal Science Economics Science in Landscape Management Arts Social Work Music Health Science Science Computer and Mathematical Sciences Fine Arts Arts, Science, Commerce Combined with Education Science in Natural Resource Management Landscape Architecture Arts (European Studies) Commerce Arts (Asian Studies) Science in Horticulture and Viticulture Environmental Design Engineering Arts combined with Economics Arts (Asian Studies) combined with Commerce Science in Agriculture combined with Commerce or Economics Arts combined with Commerce Science combined with Commerce or Economics Health Science combined with Commerce or Economics Science combined with Arts Arts (Asian Studies) combined with Economics Engineering combined with Commerce Science combined with Engineering Dental Science Medicine or Surgery Combined Law Courses
Source: Admissions Office, UWA, as of 5 March 2001.

Effective TEE cut-off Rank 79.65 79.80 79.85 79.95 79.95 79.95 79.95 79.95 79.95 80.05 80.50 80.80 80.84 81.80 82.45 83.80 85.15 85.45 87.05 88.05 89.50 89.50 89.55 89.60 89.90 90.00 90.35 95.10 95.10 95.75 96.00 Approx. 96.00 Approx. 98.00

Figure 1 School Influence on First Year Performance, Holding TER Constant

Weighted Average First Year Mark
100

Government Schools Catholic Schools Independent Schools

80

60

40

20

0 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100

Tertiary Entrance Rank

The Index of Economic Resources highlights disposable income and focuses on the economic resources of households in the region. Factors summarised by this index are the income, expenditure, home ownership, dwelling size, and car ownership of families in the regions. High index values indicate that there is a higher proportion of families on high income, a lower proportion of low-income families, and more households purchasing or owning dwellings and living in large houses (Stevenson et al., 2000). The Index of Education and Occupation reflects the educational and occupational structure of communities. High index values indicate that a region would have a high concentration of persons with higher education or undergoing further education, and people being employed in the higher skilled occupations (Stevenson et al., 2000).9 A second source of external data is the Curriculum Council of Western Australia, which yearly provides various statistics on schools. Three of their indicators are chosen to reflect the characteristics of schools, derived from collective characteristics of those attending the school. They are the percentage of students who graduated from high school (a general measure of school effectiveness), the percentage of students who took four or more TEE subjects during that school year (a measure of the aspirations for tertiary study of the students at a school), and the percentage of students who attained High TES upon completion of high school (a proxy for the academic merit of the student body). All these statistics are based on full-time students who were eligible to graduate in 2000, and only schools with 20 or more full-time eligible students are considered (Curriculum Council, 2000). These variables are termed Pergrad, PerTEE and HighTES, respectively, in the discussion that follows.10 Table 2 lists all variables in the analysis, together with the variable codes used in many presentations.
With a simple correlation coefficient of 0.673 in the sample (compared to around 0.8 for the population), these two indices are only weakly correlated, and both are considered simultaneously in the subsequent equations. 10 While these variables are positively correlated, the binary relationships are not very strong. See Appendix A for details on the correlation matrix.
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Table 2 Variables and Codes Used in the Equations

Variable First Year Weighted Average Mark Tertiary Entrance Rank Female student Rural home location Economic Resources at home Education and Occupation at home Catholic school Independent school Rural school Small school Medium school Boys school Girls school Percent of students graduated from school Percent of students who took more than 3 TEE subjects Percent of students who got high TES Variable Code wtav1 TER Female Rulhome EconRes EduOcc Cath Indp Rulschl Smlschl Medschl Boyschl Girlschl Pergrad PerTEE HighTES

The estimating equation used in the initial analysis of first-year university performance for individual i is: wtav1i = 0 + 1 TERi + 2 Femalei + 3 Rulhomei + 4 EconResi + 5 EduOcc i + i
(7)

In this equation, TER is the Tertiary Entrance Rank of UWA students who were in first year in 2001. Female is a dummy variable, defined to be equal to 1 where the student is a female, otherwise it is equal to 0. Similarly, Rulhome is a dummy variable for a rural home location created from the home location data11 on the UWA student record system. It is equal to 1 where the student comes from a rural home and 0 if the student comes from an urban home. The variables EconRes and EduOcc are based on the indices for Economic Resources at Home and Education and Occupation at home constructed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics from Census data for 1996. i is a random error term. To study school effects, the analysis recognises the multi-level nature of the data, where students are nested within schools. Therefore, rather than considering all variables in one linear equation (a first-generation approach), the individual-level variables are separated from school-level variables. The following equation is taken as the starting point: wtav1i = 0j + 1j TERi + 2 Femalei + 3 Rulhomei + 4 EconResi + 5 EduOcci + i (8)

Unlike the first-generation style approach, the constant term 0j and the TER coefficient 1j are now treated as random parameters and are allowed to vary according to the school-level variables. This way of treating the data is usually called a random parameters model in the economics literature. Variation in the constant term (0j) is specified as follows:

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This is based on permanent rather than term address.

0j =

0 + 0 Cathj + 1 Indpj + 2 Rulschlj + 3 Smlschlj + 4 Medschlj + 5 Boyschlj + 6 Girlschlj + 7 Pergradj + 8 PerTEEj+ 9 HighTESj + j

(9)

and the coefficient for TER changes according to equation (10). 1j = 1 + 0 Cathj + 1 Indpj + 2 Rulschlj+ 3 Smlschlj + 4 Medschlj + 5 Boyschlj + 6 Girlschlj + 7 Pergradj + 8 PerTEEj + 9 HighTESj + j (10)

Of the five slope coefficients in the model, only that for TER is allowed to be a random parameter, as this was the only slope coefficient that consistently had a statistically significant impact and relatively large estimated effects in the exploratory analyses conducted.12 The variables Cath and Indp in equations (9) and (10) are binary variables created from the school type data on the UWA student record system. Where the student comes from a Catholic school, Cath is equal to 1, otherwise it is equal to 0. Similar logic applies to those students who come from Independent schools in the creation of Indp. Rulsch is a dummy variable created from the institutional data on school location. It is equal to 1 where the student attended a rural school and 0 if the student went to an urban school. Smlsch and Medschl, and Boyschl and Girlschl are each binary variables created from the institutional data on school size (distinguishing students at small and medium schools, respectively, from those at large schools)13 and school sex (distinguishing those at all boys schools and all girls schools, respectively, from students at co-educational schools)14. Individual school characteristics are also captured by the Pergrad, PerTEE and HighTES variables for, respectively, the percent of students who graduated from the school the student attended in 2000, the percent of students at that school who took more than three TEE subjects, and the percent of students at the school who got a high TES score. As clearly depicted in the above equations, the aggregated school-level variables are now considered distinctly from the individual-level variables. Allowing the constant and the slope coefficient on the TER variable to change makes the model more flexible as it permits many predicted relationships to be derived. The random nature of equations (9) and (10) means that the model can be applied to students from schools outside the sample used for the estimation. There are 332 missing values for the weighted average first-year mark (wtav1). These arise where students have withdrawn, had deferred exams or for various reasons had marks which had not been finalised at the time of data extraction. Individuals with missing wtav1 have many characteristics in common with the sample analysed, but they also differ in several respects. Table 3 provides comparison data.

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Although separate analyses could be conducted by gender, the larger sample that results in the pooled analyses offers advantages in estimation for the random parameters model. 13 Almost 60 percent of the 2001 UWA first year students came from large high schools. Medium-sized schools made up about 30 percent, and only 10 percent of students attended small schools. 14 About 50 percent of 2001 first year students attended co-educational schools. Among the remaining students, there were roughly an equal number of students who went to all-boys schools and all-girls schools.

Table 3 Means and Standard Deviations of Variables for Sub-Sets of Data With and Without Information on wtav1
Variable Code TER Female Rulhome EconRes EduOcc Cath Indp Rulschl Smlschl Medschl Boyschl Girlschl Pergrad PerTEE HighTEE With wtav1 91.8 .521 .115 1067.4 1058.2 .229 .352 .079 .083 .314 .166 .185 94.3 72.1 40.8 (5.90) (0.50) (0.32) (71.8) (93.6) (0.42) (0.48) (0.27) (0.28) (0.46) (0.37) (0.39) (5.63) (15.3) (16.2) Without wtav1 90.0 .602 268 1028.7 1022.7 .187 .407 .217 .136 .383 .133 .189 93.2 69.4 39.0 (6.17) (0.49) (0.44) (168.7) (178.0) (0.39) (0.49) (0.41) (0.34) (0.49) (0.34) (0.39) (11.5) (17.8) (17.8)

Table 3 shows that students with missing information on the weighted average first-year performance are more likely to be female, be from rural areas and to have attended rural schools than other students. In terms of the remaining characteristics, however, there are no notable differences between the two groups. In particular, there is a difference of less than two points (or only one-third of a standard deviation) in the TERs of the two groups. Before proceeding to review the estimates, a further qualification needs to be introduced. The Cath and Indp variables are included in the model to reflect school type effects. However, as choice of school type is linked to family background (see Le and Miller, 2003), these variables may also capture family background influences. As a favourable family background is expected to be associated with superior academic outcomes (Marks, McMillan and Hillman, 2001), and the variables for graduation from non-government schools attract negative shift coefficients in the analyses report on below, this indirect family background influence may serve to mute what would otherwise have been more pronounced school type effects. Empirical Results The findings from the regression analyses of the factors that affect first year university marks are presented in table 4. In these analyses the dependent variable has been transformed to reflect the nature of the weighted average score (wtav1), which is bounded by 0 and 100.0. This has been achieved by using wtav1*, defined as: wtav1* = Log [ wtav1 / (100.0 wtav1) ] (11)

This transformation ensures that both within-sample and out-of-sample predictions of first year marks will not exceed 100 or fall below 0. Partial effects may be calculated from the estimates obtained with this dependent variable using:

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 wtav1 / TER = TER [ (wtav1) (100.0 wtav1) / 100 ]

(12)

These partial effects are usually evaluated at the mean value of the dependent variable, wtav1 . Following the practice of most second-generation studies, all individual-level variables are entered in the model as deviations from the mean for that variable for the school attended. The variables Pergrad, PerTEE and HighTES are also entered in the model as deviations from means, though in this instance the grand or overall mean is used.15 The slope coefficients for TER, Female, Rulhome, EconRes, and EduOcc are to be interpreted as impacts for students having a characteristic more than or less than the mean for the school attended. That is, the reference point is the students school and so the estimated impact deals with an intra-school effect. In comparison, the variables for heterogeneity in the intercept and in the slope for TER assess the impact of attendance at a particular school in comparison with the mean for all schools. In other words, they assess inter-school effects. The first column of results in table 4 contains results from a specification that includes only individual-level regressors, and is analogous to the first-generation style model. It follows equation (8), and the estimates have been obtained using OLS. The second specification is another first-generation model that combines both individual-level and school-level data. This estimation ignores the different levels of aggregation (individuals and schools) in the regression equation. The third specification is for a second-generation model that incorporates high school effects into the estimating equation predicting first-year university performance in a way that is fully cognisant of the different levels of aggregation (individuals, schools) represented in the data. These estimates are obtained using simulation estimation.16 Overall, the first-generation model does not have a strong performance, with the R2 being only 0.25. The most striking feature of the results is that the first year weighted average mark has a strong positive relationship with the TER. In the context of the current model, this means that among students who attended the same high school, those with a TER score above the schools average are likely to get a higher average mark in their first year of university compared to those with a TER score lower than the average of the same high school. When computed using equation (12), each extra point on the TER scale is associated with an increase by about one in the mean first year academic performance.17

15 16

See Singer (1998). Simulation estimation is used when there is a need to maximize or minimize functions that involve expectations. The LIMDEP econometrics package is used. Details can be found in the numerical analysis literature, and a brief overview is provided in Greene (2002). 17 Similar results are obtained when the Tertiary Entrance Score is used as an explanatory variable in place of the TER. See Appendix B for details.

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Table 4 OLS & Random Parameter Estimates of Models of Determinants of 1st-Yr Uni. Performance Variable OLS (i) OLS (ii) Random Parameters (iii) Constant 0.5841* 0.6616* 0.6635 (53.88) (29.86) (43.65)* TER 0.0490* 0.0490* 0.0489* (24.56) (24.93) (18.67) Female 0.1116* 0.1116* 0.1093* (3.81) (3.89) (6.33) Rural Home Location -0.0117 -0.0117 -0.0141 (0.18) (0.18) (0.31) Economic Resources at home -0.0002 -0.0002 -0.0002 (0.88) (0.90) (1.01) Education and Occupation at home 0.0005** 0.0005** 0.0004* (1.88) (1.90) (2.77) Intercept heterogeneity Catholic School (a) -0.1274* -0.1135* (3.97) (5.48) Independent School (a) -0.0828* -0.0762* (2.01) (2.75) Rural School (a) -0.1579* -0.1491* (3.44) (5.33) Small School (a) 0.0939 0.0941* (1.54) (2.39) Medium School (a) 0.0417 0.0369 (1.13) (1.54) Boys School (a) -0.0908* -0.0814* (2.30) (3.44) Girls School (a) -0.0671 -0.0848* (1.55) (3.27) % of students graduated from School (a) -0.0005 -0.0004 (0.19) (0.24) % of students taking over 3 TEE subjects (a) -0.0012 -0.0009 (0.83) (0.97) % of students who got high TES (a) 0.0040* 0.0039* (2.61) (4.67) TER slope heterogeneity Catholic School (a) (a) -0.0049 (1.15) Independent School (a) (a) 0.0032 (0.69) Rural School (a) (a) 0.0024 (0.55) Small School (a) (a) 0.0143* (2.05) Medium School (a) (a) 0.0039 (0.82) Boys School (a) (a) 0.0035 (0.76) Girls School (a) (a) -0.0109* (2.06) % of students graduated from School (a) (a) 0.0009* (2.60) % of students taking over 3 TEE subjects (a) (a) 0.0004* (1.99) % of students who got high TEE (a) (a) 0.0001 (0.44) Adjusted R2 0.25251 0.27250 F Statistic 122.75 46.00 Max. Log Likelihood 1117.7 1803 1803 1803 Sample Size

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Notes: (a) = variable not entered; t statistics in parentheses; * = significant at the 5 percent level; ** = significant at the 10 percent level; 2 for variables for heterogeneity in constant and in slope for TER is 44.8.

The results also confirm the expectations that, in general, female students outperform male students during the first year of university. While this advantage is only about 2 points, it is highly significant, and is one of the few individual- or school-level variables that has a consistent effect on first year academic performance. This result is similar to the finding reported in earlier studies of UWA students (Trinca, 1988; Everett and Robins, 1991). In terms of students socioeconomic background, while there is no significant relationship between the academic performance of students at first-year university and homes economic resources, the education and occupation level at home has a positive impact on student performance. In other words, not only do students from favourable family backgrounds have a greater chance of attending university (see Marks et al., 2000), they also appear to do better in their university studies, even after controlling for TER. This is consistent with existing evidence presented by Marks, McMillan and Hillman (2001), in which parents occupational status is shown to have a strong positive effect on students achievement. In addition, the childcare provided by mothers with higher education levels has a positive impact on their childrens cognitive skills, according to Murnane, Maynard and Ohls (1981). However, when interpreting the relationship between academic performance of students and their socioeconomic background, it is important to note that statistical errors could arise from combining individual-level data with aggregated generalizations for the measurement of socioeconomic factors. For example, a suburb might be assigned a low score on socioeconomic indicators because there are less well-to-do households on average. Based on this, a student from a wealthy family who lives in such as suburb could be assigned a low score due to a low suburb score. The relationship between socioeconomic factors and first year performance might then be distorted as a result. Quadratic equations were also employed to examine whether there were any non-linearities in the relationship between the weighted average score for first year UWA students and their TER.18 The results show that, at the margin for entry into UWA, the relationship between first-year performance and TER is quite flat, and perverse over some lower values of TER. West and Slamowicz (1976), in a study of first year students enrolled at Monash University in 1970, found that the relationship between the mean first year university mark and the mean score of the final year of high school (Higher School Certificate or HSC) was negative at the low levels of HSC. The important implication of these results is that a composite selection index might be used instead of using HSC or TER as a sole university entrance criterion (see West and Slamowicz, 1976; Everett and Robins, 1991). In many ways, this is what happens in the Uway program at UWA, described earlier in section 3. For almost all the sample, however, the linear TER variable is a useful descriptor of the relationship between first-year university performance and prior achievement, and so this functional form is used in the subsequent analyses based on the random parameters model. Column (ii) of table 4 contains results based on equation (3). This specification, which is typical of first-generation studies, combines individual-level data with aggregated schoollevel explanatory variables. The results for the new variables show that students who graduated from Catholic, Independent, rural or boys schools do less well during their first year at university than other students. The results also show that students who attended schools that had relatively high proportions of high performing (in the TEE) students do
18

That is, over-and-above the non-linearities that result from the logistic form used for the dependent variable.

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relatively well during their first year at university. The inclusion of these additional variables has little impact on the variables included in the specification listed in column (i). In particular, the strong relationship between first-year academic performance and TER remains as the dominant feature of the findings. Further information on the links between TER and university students academic performance could be achieved if those with low entrance scores (i.e., the UWay students) could be analysed separately. However, the small number of UWay students (1.2 percent of the initial sample) precludes this. An alternative would be to use data for universities with lower cut-off marks, but attempts to obtain such data have not been successful at the time of writing. The sensitivity of the results to the underlying econometric specification was also examined. One obvious candidate in this regard is to take account of the courses the students study. There are differences in tertiary cut-off ranks for different courses at UWA19 and presumably a range of other factors that might be related to both course choice and first year performance, and so there is a likelihood that students subsequent performance at university would differ across courses. Table 5, which lists UWA courses with 20 or more students, reveals that the mean of first year performance ranges widely, from 55 for an Economics course to 72 for a Science-Engineering combined degree. However, when course variables were added to the model, few were associated with statistically significant effects, and among those that were, the estimated effects were quite small. Importantly, the underlying results for the remaining variables had no significant changes.20 Therefore, the results are robust to the specification changes that could be considered. The results of the second-generation random parameters model are listed in the third column of table 4. They have a number of similarities and one difference from those reported earlier. In terms of the similarities, TER has a strong positive linkage with student performance during the first year of university, female students tend to achieve marks higher than the average of the school compared to male students, and the rural home variable is statistically insignificant, as is the economic resources at home variable. The difference in results from those reported in column (i) concerns the students who come from a home with higher family education and occupation level. These students are shown to have slightly higher performance than the average of the school they attended. This result under the random parameters model is in the same direction as, but is much more significant than, the findings from the first-generational style individual-level analysis.

19 20

See table 1. This finding is important as it suggests that the large differences in first year grades across courses have their origins in ability differences rather than grade inflation in some courses.

14

Table 5 First Year Weighted Average Scores for UWA Courses with 20 or More Students, 200121
Course Name Mean Std.Dev. No. of Students Significant Standardised Effect

Economics Computer & Math Sciences Health Science Commerce Science Engineering Arts-Commerce Arts Architecture (Environmental Design) Music/Musical Arts/Music-Education Arts-Science Science-Commerce/Economics Dentistry Commerce-Engineering Medicine/Medicine-Arts Law combined (5 yrs) BCom Law combined (5 yrs) BA Science-Engineering All Courses

54.8 57.2 59.9 60.0 60.6 62.0 62.8 63.7 64.4 65.0 66.3 66.5 66.5 68.0 69.6 70.1 70.3 71.8 63.6

14.3 11.3 9.1 10.7 12.1 11.3 12.3 11.3 5.0 11.4 13.0 9.0 7.1 10.4 7.1 7.5 7.9 10.3 11.5

30 77 40 176 365 116 65 190 38 40 31 64 21 81 80 54 55 96 1803

No No No Yes (-ve) Benchmark Yes (-ve) Yes (-ve) Yes (+ve) No No No No No No No No No Yes (+ve)

Refers to whether a dummy variable for the particular course is significant in a first generation model using the table 4, column (ii) specification.

The inter-school effects on the first year university mark are modelled through the variables that account for the heterogeneity in the intercept and in the slope for TER in the second column of table 4. As with the first-generation model in column (ii), both school type variables have negative effects on the intercept term. That is, the mean university achievement of students from Catholic schools or Independent schools is less than the mean achievement for students who had attended Government schools. However, their impact on the relationship between the first year university mark and the TER is small and insignificant, meaning the outperformance of the Government school counterparts is consistent across various levels of TER scores. The relatively low first-year university marks for students from non-government schools may be explained with reference to the conclusions of Marks, McMillan and Hillman (2001). They show that students attending Independent and Catholic schools have higher mean TER than students attending Government schools, with the standardised differences being 5.9 and 5.0 percentage points respectively. There are various reasons for why school type is associated with student performance at high school, including the superior resources and more attentive coaching of non-government schools. Hence, in many respects, the TER of the students coming from Independent and Catholic schools may be viewed as being artificially inflated compared to that of students from government schools. In this situation, some reversion towards the mean would be expected, and this should show up in this statistical analysis as a negative effect on first-year university performance among students who attended non-government schools once TER is held constant.
21

Only those students enrolled in courses listed in this table are considered. Science is taken as a reference point. The specification used is based on column (ii) of table 4.

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There are a number of other school variables that affect the level of academic performance at university through the intercept term. Attending a rural school rather than an urban school has a negative impact on university performance. Students who attended a small school are shown to have superior university achievement compared to the benchmark category of students who attended large schools22. Co-educational schools have a positive effect on students achievement at university compared to all-boys schools and all-girls schools.23 It is noted that the significant results associated with the rural schools and girls schools are a feature of the findings from the random parameters model that is not found in the firstgeneration model in column (ii).24 The results also indicate that students from schools with a larger percent of students who performed well in the final year of high school (HighTES) have better average performance at university compared to students from schools that have a smaller percentage for that measure. This means that while a bright student who attended a school where there are many other bright students does well at university for two reasons: their individual academic merit and the schools academic merit, a more mediocre student who attended the same school also benefits via this school academic merit route. This might be termed an immersion effect, or a positive externality. In terms of effects on the slope, however, HighTES has a negligible impact while both Pergrad and PerTEE have significant positive effects. Therefore, the increments in marks during the first year at university with TER are greater among students who attended schools with a high percentage of students graduating each year and with a high percentage of students taking four or more TEE subjects. In this regard, these schools can be argued to have a positive reinforcement on the subsequent performance of their students at university. In addition, the impact of attending small schools is significant, and these schools are associated with an increase in the slope for TER. Lastly, all-girls schools reduce the slope for TER slightly. Treating the data at different levels makes the model much more versatile for capturing various effects on first year university performance. By separately studying effects at the intra-school level and the inter-school level, it is now possible to differentiate the impacts on achievement coming from individual background as opposed to schools influence. Policy implications on these results are discussed in the conclusion section that follows. Conclusion This paper aimed to determine the factors that influence university students performance. In doing so, two dimensions were considered (individual factors and school factors) within the context of two methodologies (first generation model and second generation model). A key
22

The first year academic performance of students who attended medium-size schools is not statistically different from that of students who attended large schools. 23 Although there have not been studies identifying effects on subsequent academic performance of attending either a single-sex or co-educational school, there are several past studies that have conclusively demonstrated that students in general do better in single-sex schools (Lee and Marks, 1992; Sax, 2002; Spielhofer et al., 2002). 24 It is noted that tests show that this is not due to the more general specification for the slope coefficient on the TER variable in column (iii) of table 4. Rather it is associated with the different approach to modeling.

16

finding is that schools have an impact on the academic performance of students at university beyond students own background characteristics. From the analyses, four main conclusions could be drawn for policy purposes. Firstly, under both first- and second-generation methodologies, there is a strong positive relationship between the first year mark and the TER. This substantiates the credibility of using TER as a criterion in the student selection process for tertiary entrance. Secondly, a non-linearity between the weighted average first year mark and the TER at the region of the UWA cut-off score implies, that at the margin, it might be appropriate to use other mechanisms in addition to the TER when selecting students into this institution. This issue was previously explored by Everett and Robins (1991), who suggested that composite scores might be formed from a range of predictor variables (including the school assessment and external examination components of the TES, and individual subject scores). Similarly, a broader range of criteria is currently used in the UWay scheme. However, it is important to note that the broader range of criteria may have to be complemented by compensatory programs to stimulate student performance. At present, Student Services at UWA provide a Transition Support Programme for students who entered via special channels such as the UWay Scheme (Student Services, 2003). This support could be augmented to include students who scored TER in the vicinity of the cut-off score. Extending this argument, there is currently debate over lowering entrance scores at many universities should differential HECS25 be introduced or should a greater FFPOS26 intake become a priority, and using ability to pay as a selection mechanism. While the research in this paper does not offer a strong basis for comment on this, it does seem that the move might need to be complemented by addition to the standard curriculum for students who enter with less than the current cutoff scores. Thirdly, the underperformance of students from Catholic and Independent schools compared to Government schools at university level is more likely to be a reflection of a correction that has taken place in terms of relative TER achievement rather than due to the specific school characteristics that were examined in this paper. In other words, it suggests that the TER of students from non-Government schools may have been artificially inflated relative to the raw abilities of these students27. According to Marks, McMillan and Hillman (2001), school sector has a substantial impact on tertiary entrance performance (accounting for approximately 22 percent of the variation in students tertiary entrance scores); on average, students attending Independent schools have higher tertiary entrance scores than students attending Catholic schools, who in turn have higher scores than students attending government schools. Moreover, under the second-generation analysis, school characteristic variables were significant alongside the school type variables, meaning the students first year performance differences between school types are not primarily due to differences in the school factors included in this paper. Finally, the second-generation research has shown the effects arising from school characteristics are important to an understanding of subsequent academic performance. The inter-school effects in the second-generation model imply two broad phenomena persist in schools: immersion effects and reinforcement effects. The immersion or positive externality
25 26

HECS = Higher Education Contribution Scheme. FFPOS = Full Fee Paying Overseas Students. 27 Another interpretation is that some of the value-added of Non-Government schools is short-lived.

17

effect28 arises when a students subsequent performance is enhanced by learning amidst a high achieving school environment, regardless of each students past academic performance. The reinforcement effects29 are realised when a students rate of achievement in university is higher because of the overall academic climate of the school they attended. Therefore, it is beneficial to encourage all students to attain high standards of academic achievement in schools. In investigating schools, this research has relied mainly on the school descriptors. What was lacking was more contextual-based information that might reveal school factors contributing to lifting subsequent student performance. In terms of further studies on this matter, specific processes that take place at schools (including qualitative information such as school culture, composition of teachers and various school programmes), resources endowed and the ways in which schools are organised should be examined in order to identify whether they ultimately affect subsequent performance at tertiary level. Understanding the economics behind the divergence among performance of students between school types would allow the stakeholders, including the schools, the state and the federal governments and the universities, to devise appropriate funding and selection policies to increase students learning outcomes. The focus of this study has been on the 2001 first year students at UWA, and various extensions could be made to allow comparative analysis across years and institutions. Within UWA, further studies are needed to analyse whether the effects identified in this paper carry forward to subsequent years of study or, as expected, if there are diminishing impacts from schools over time due to the convergence of student learning styles within a university environment. In addition, studies also need to be done for first year students from other years to confirm that the relationships generally hold true across time. Apart from UWA, similar studies could be carried out for other universities in WA and in other states of Australia30 so that some general benchmarks could be established for factors that influence performance at university. Although some clear relationships have been established, the analyses indicate that the model used in this report can explain only about 25 percent of the variation in student performance at university. This means that a very large proportion of the variance is still unaccounted for by this model. Various policies within UWA itself are likely to be highly influential in addition to background factors. Included here might be target mean marks for some units. Furthermore, students individual qualities and personal traits (such as their study habits, motivation, ambition, extra-curricular interests, and other related factors) would also greatly affect their academic performance. In summary, this paper connects the many issues that are raised by an attempt to understand better the relationship between individual and school factors and academic performance at university. Without understanding such factors, we cannot hope to understand either the nature of student performance or of the university education system. The results show that this relationship can be modelled, but that further research is needed in order to develop a fuller understanding of the processes at work.
28 29

This is shown by the positive intercept for schools with higher percent of students who attained High TES. This is shown by the positive slope terms for schools with higher percent of students who graduate each year and schools with higher percent of students who took four or more TEE subjects. 30 This is subject to the availability and access to similar data.

18

APPENDIX A Variables Used in the Analyses The variables used in the study are described below. Reference groups for categorical variables are listed in bold.
Variable
Gender(a) Home Location(a)

Variable Type
categorical

Valid Codes
1 = Male 2 = Female 1 = Metro 2 = Rural 1 = Catholic 2 = Government 3 = Independent 1 = Metro 2 = Rural 1 = Large 2 = Medium 3 = Small 1 = All-Boys 2 = All-Girls 3 = Co-Educational 70.00 - 99.95 269.3 - 507.3 2.00 - 99.99 0.00 - 100.00 0.00 - 100.00 0.00 - 100.00 700-2000 700-2000

Number Missing
None

categorical

None

School Type(a)

categorical

None

School Location(a) School Size(a)

categorical

None

categorical

None

School Sex(a)

categorical

None

UWA TER(a) UWA TES(a) First Year Weighted Average Score(a) % of Students Graduated from School (Pergrad)(b) % of who took more than 3 TEE subjects (PerTEE)(b) % of Students with High TES (HighTES)(b) Economic Resources at home(c) Education and Occupation at home(c)

continuous continuous continuous continuous continuous continuous continuous continuous

4 4 332 25 25 25 43 43

(a) Sourced from UWA institutional records; (b) Constructed linking the school students attended with Curriculum Council of Western Australia data; (c) Constructed linking students home postcode information with Australian Bureau of Statistics data..

The school characteristics variables (Pergrad, PerTEE, HighTES) are only moderately correlated, as shown below:
Pergrad PerTEE HighTES Pergrad 1.000 0.412 0.551 PerTEE 1.000 0.706 1.000 HighTES

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APPENDIX B
Table B.1 OLS and Random Parameter Estimates of Models of Determinants of First-Year University Performance Based on TES Variable OLS (i) OLS (ii) Random Parameters (iii) Constant 0.5841* 0.6616* 0.6580 (55.57) (31.17) (44.08)* TER 0.0074* 0.0074* 0.0073* (28.29) (28.78) (20.64) Female 0.1354* 0.1354* 0.1354* (4.73) (4.83) (8.20) Rural Home Location 0.0262 0.0262 0.0221 (0.40) (0.41) (0.49) Economic Resources at home -0.0003 -0.0003 -0.0002 (1.16) (1.18) (1.41) Education and Occupation at home 0.0005* 0.0005* 0.0004* (2.00) (2.02) (3.08) Intercept heterogeneity Catholic School (a) -0.1274* -0.1210* (4.04) (6.06) Independent School (a) -0.0828* -0.0773* (2.07) (2.91) Rural School (a) -0.1579* -0.1526* (3.44) (5.69) Small School (a) 0.0939 0.0980* (1.56) (2.57) Medium School (a) 0.0417 0.0402** (1.17) (1.72) Boys School (a) -0.0908* -0.0863* (2.38) (3.72) Girls School (a) -0.0671 -0.0715* (1.58) (2.87) % of students graduated from School (a) -0.0005 -0.0002 (0.19) (0.15) % of students taking over 3 TEE subjects (a) -0.0012 -0.0010 (0.85) (1.10) % of students who got high TES (a) 0.0040* 0.0038* (2.70) (4.61) TER slope heterogeneity Catholic School (a) (a) -0.0005 (0.74) Independent School (a) (a) 0.0001 (0.14) Rural School (a) (a) -0.0002 (0.03) Small School (a) (a) 0.0015 (1.55) Medium School (a) (a) 0.0008 (1.20) Boys School (a) (a) -0.0001 (0.12) Girls School (a) (a) -0.0010 (1.38) % of students graduated from School (a) (a) 0.0001* (2.18) % of students taking over 3 TEE subjects (a) (a) 0.0001** (1.91) % of students who got high TEE (a) (a) 0.0000 (0.92) Adjusted R2 0.29739 0.31763 F Statistic 153.54 56.92

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Max. Log Likelihood 1064.3 1803 1803 1803 Sample Size Notes: (a) = variable not entered; t statistics in parentheses; * = significant at the 5 percent level; ** = significant at the 10 percent level; 2 for variables for heterogeneity in constant and in slope for TER is 34.6.

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