The domains related to student success in an academic development programme

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study focuses on student success in an Academic Development Programme at a large, research-intensive higher education institution in South Africa. The researcher as a lecturer in a post-Apartheid South Africa, investigated variables within the demographic, institutional, economic, cognitive, personal needs, and psychological domains of student success. The aim of the study was to determine which domains could be related to student success in the Academic Development Programme as presented at the Mamelodi Campus of the University of Pretoria. A mixed-methods research design was adopted. The data were collected from students who joined the Extended Curriculum Programme during an 11-year period (2010-2020). The research was conducted within three distinctive phases. The first phase was a quantitative, secondary analysis of existing university data (n=5 560), followed by a second quantitative phase consisting of the administration of a questionnaire (n=161). The second phase was followed by a qualitative, third phase of data collection by means of conducting interviews (n=15). Data was analysed by means of descriptive statistics and theory-driven, inductive coding. The investigation revealed that, as a collective programme, the Extended Curriculum Programme alleviates the differences in demography and economic status to such an extent that students from quintile 1 and 2 schools situated in deprived areas were equally successful as students from quintile 5 schools situated in privileged suburbs. The study also revealed that each domain plays an important and significant role in student success. However, the psychological domain and the personal needs domain seem to be the two most notable and eminent domains in relation to student success. The study therefore suggests that institutions of higher education place specific emphasis on students’ mental and personal well-being in Academic Development Programmes.

Keywords: Student success, Academic Development Programme, Extended Curriculum Programme, Retention, Attrition, Demographic domain, Institutional domain, Economic domain, Cognitive domain, Personal needs domain, Psychological domain