SOME CORRELATES OF UNIVERSITY PERFORMANCE IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: THE CASE OF ETIHOPIA

Abstract

Language background, educational backgrounds, and scores on a variety of achievement and aptitude tests were examined for their relation to the first semester performance of 1,213 freshman students at the Haile Sellassie I University in Ethiopia.

Among the test data proficiency in English language skills was most strongly related to university grade. Scores from all tests requiring English language skills were moderately to strongly inter-related and showed moderate relations to performance. Scores from tests requiring skill in the official Ethiopian language, Amharic predicated poorly to university performance, and test of mathematic-numerical
ability showed intermediate but weak predicative utility.

The only language or educational background data related to performance was educational mobility, the student’s tendency to move to areas of greater educational resources during their pre-university education. This mobility probably reflects strong motivation for education, a factor which deserves further research attention.

A major problem facing developing countries is a scarcity of indigenous, university trained people. Sending students abroad for training has proven an unsatisfactory solution to the problem. Many students fail to return from their studies abroad and those who do return often suffer serious conflicts in values, resulting in a diminished contribution to development. Establishing university training within the country has been seen as a more effective long range solution. But for developing countries, higher education represents an enormous expenditure compared with more immediate needs for development. This fact heightens the importance of maximizing the utilization of this scarce and costly training.
The common approach to maximization of training is to carefully screen students for admission to the university, and to admit only those who are most likely of complete their studies. This approach is highly developed in western countries where universities use a variety of fairly objective criteria for admission,
such as high school grades and standardized aptitude and achievement tests.

Developing countries have increasingly adopted this approach. However, the myriad of factors which mitigate against development may also limit the value of admission criteria used in western universities. Among these factors language heterogeneity, primary and secondary education of poor and uneven communication about educational opportunities, limited geographic mobility and heterogeneous cultural values.  

Although these factors are generally recognized by educators in the developing countries, little is known about the way in which they affect the performance of university student. The research reported here was designed to examine the relation to university performance of both the western criteria of aptitude and achievement tests and two of the factors noted above, the language and educational background of students.