Investigating Suggestions for Increasing the Throughput Rate of IS Students

Abstract

During the past few years science faculties at tertiary education institutions in South Africa have had to face increasing pressure from national as well as provincial government bodies to improve the student throughput rate. Various suggestions have been made to achieve this goal. This paper investigates the viability of two of these suggestions for solving the throughput problem. It is part of a larger reflexive research project investigating various aspects of the teaching and learning of Computing and IS through distance education. Information from the assignment records and the examination marks of students for a specific Computer Science second year module with a practical component was used for this study.

Cheating or ‘Collaborative Work’: Does it Pay?

“…This study is part of a long-term project where various ways in which the pass-rate of students in computer programming modules could be improved are investigated (Naudé & Hörne, 2003, 2004. In this paper we look at the phenomenon of cheating in assignments and how this affects the examination results of individual students.…”