Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to use first-year test results to develop an early warning
system for the identification of freshmen at risk of failing.
All students registered between 1989 and 1997 for the six-year programmes chiropractic
and homoeopathy were included in this ex post facto study. A descriptive study firstly
indicated a serious problem of attrition with on average only 66% of chiropractic and
55% homoeopathy freshmen successfully completing the first year.
A relationship was demonstrated between both first and second test results and outcome
at the end of the first year of studies. A logistic regression model estimated
retrospectively from first test results in physiology, anatomy, biology and chemistry was
able to discriminate between successful and non-successful freshmen with an overall
predictive accuracy of 80.82%. When this model was validated on a different set of
data it was shown to have a very high sensitivity and was thus able to correctly identify
>93 % of the potentially at risk freshmen. It also had a low Type II error ( <7%) and thus
missed very few of the freshmen at risk of failing.
A logistic regression model estimated retrospectively from second test results in
physiology, anatomy, biology and chemistry had an overall predictive accuracy of
85.94% . The validated model had a sensitivity of 67% which was too low for the
model to be of much use as a management tool for the identification of the freshmen at
risk of failing. However, the model was shown to have a high specificity and was able to
correctly identify >93% of the potentially successful freshmen. It also had a low Type I
error (14.29%).
Discriminant analysis models estimated from both first and second test results in
physiology, anatomy, biology and chemistry produced strong support for the use of test
results for the early identification of those freshmen who would need support in order to
be successful.
It is suggested that the objective models developed in this research could identify the
freshman in need of support at an early enough stage for support measures to still have a
positive effect on attrition.