An Investigation Into the Impact of Tutorials on the Performance of Economics Students

Abstract

The deteriorating performance of first-year economics students has become a concern at many South African universities. Addressing the issue requires an understanding of the factors influencing students' success. Studies analysing academic performance use the education production function approach. This approach identifies inputs that are crucial to learning and to achieving certain outputs. Factors that have been investigated in other studies include the impact of lecture attendance on performance, school-leaving exam (matriculation) results, particularly performance in mathematics, and the gender and age of students. Copyright (c) 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2009 Economic Society of South Africa.

Factors Explaining the Academic Success of Second‐year Economics Students: An Exploratory Analysis

“…Empirical findings (Van Walbeek, 2004; Horn and Jansen, 2009) indicated that students who attended tutorials and lectures more often performed relatively better. It was also argued that age, gender and race could have an influence on students' likelihood of writing the examination (Smith, 2009:168).…”

Relationship Between Time of Class and Student Grades in an Active Learning Course

“…As a result, much research has investigated the relationship between attending lectures and performance on tests and final grades. Positive relationships have been reported by scholars working in a variety of disciplines such as engineering (Purcell, 2007), medicine (Millis, Dyson, & Cannon, 2009;Smith, 2012;Subramaniam, Hande, & Komattil, 2013), pharmacy (Hidayat, Vansal, Kim, Sullivan, & Salbu, 2012), economics (Chen & Lin, 2008;Horn & Jansen, 2009;Marburger, 2006;Romer, 1993), business (Halpern, 2007;Massingham & Herrington, 2006;Rodgers & Rodgers, 2003;Sauers, McVay, & Deppa, 2005), accounting (Paisey & Paisey, 2004), agriculture (Devadoss & Foltz, 1996;Lockwood, Guppy, & Smyth, 2006), and psychology (Park & Kerr, 1990;Van Blerkom, 1992).…”

Class absenteeism: reasons for non‐attendance and the effect on academic performance

“…The benefits associated with class attendance have lead researchers to hypothesis that class attendance should positively correlate with academic performance (Durden & Ellis, 1995;Devadoss & Foltz, 1996;Rodgers, 2001;Marburger, 2001;Rodgers & Rodgers, 2003;Paisey & Paisey, 2004;Gump, 2005;Sauers et al, 2005;Woodfield et al, 2006;Massingham & Herrington, 2006;Halpern, 2007;Chen & Lin, 2008;Newman-Ford et al, 2008;Horn & Jansen, 2009;Credé et al, 2010). These researchers have generally confirmed this correlation -although cautioning that the link could be no more than a casual one as students who attend lectures may already be more predisposed to academic achievement (Romer, 1993;Devadoss & Foltz, 1996;Marburger, 2001;Rodgers, 2001;Paisey & Paisey, 2004;Gendron & Pieper, 2005;Halpern, 2007) and may exhibit greater levels of motivation (Longhurst, 1999;Massingham & Herrington, 2006;Moore et al, 2008).…”

“…and the ability to generate class notes as an additional source of information (Marburger, 2001). The benefits associated with class attendance have lead researchers to hypothesis that class attendance should positively correlate with academic performance (Durden & Ellis, 1995;Devadoss & Foltz, 1996;Rodgers, 2001;Marburger, 2001;Rodgers & Rodgers, 2003;Paisey & Paisey, 2004;Gump, 2005;Sauers et al, 2005;Woodfield et al, 2006;Massingham & Herrington, 2006;Halpern, 2007;Chen & Lin, 2008;Newman-Ford et al, 2008;Horn & Jansen, 2009;Credé et al, 2010). These researchers have generally confirmed this correlation -although cautioning that the link could be no more than a casual one as students who attend lectures may already be more predisposed to academic achievement…”