A comparative study of first-year psychological test participants and evaders

Abstract

Black students' failure to complete the psycho-educational test battery that is administered traditionally to all first-year registrants at some historically white universities not only tends to impede admissions research, but also may augur ill for students' optimal integration into university life. The results of a study in which only archival data were available for test participants and test evaders, are reported. The test participant tended to perform better academically, both at high school and at university, than did the test evaders. On average they were younger than the test evaders and they tended to register in the science faculties rather than in the social sciences and humanities. By definition, further explorations of psychological explanations for these findings are precluded by the unavailability of test data for test evaders.


South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.15(3) 2001: 150-153