FEASIBILITY OF COLLEGE STUDENT PLACEMENT AT KING ABDULAZIZ UNIVERSITY BY DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION AND MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS

Purpose. This study was designed to answer two research questions: (1) How can we determine which college of study a beginning student with a given set of academic characteristics should enter? and (2) Can we predict the GPA in a given college of study and determine the variables which contribute most to the prediction of the student's success in terms of GPA?;Discriminant function was used to answer the first research question and regression analysis was used to answer the second question. Six subjects from the high school record were used as the classification variables in discriminant analysis and as the predictor variables to predict the college GPA in regression analysis.;Findings. (1) The discriminant function correctly classified students to each of the six scientific colleges at King Abdulaziz University as follows: Science-59%; Engineering-79%; Medicine-85%; Earth Sciences-70%; Marine Sciences-81%; Meteorology-88%. The overall correct classification was 77%. (2) The variables which contributed most to the prediction of success in the scientific colleges at King Abdulaziz University in terms of the GPA were English, science, math, and total score.;Conclusions. The following major conclusions were drawn from the results of this study. (1) Multiple discriminant analysis can be effectively used to classify a high school graduate into an area of study where he will be most likely to succeed. (2) Multiple regression analysis can be effectively used to: (a) predict the success of the student in terms of the GPA to be expected and (b) identify the variable which contributes most to the prediction. (3) Using a combination of both statistical techniques--multiple discriminant analysis and multiple regression analysis--will give better prediction and accurate classification than using one alone.;Procedure. Subjects of this study were limited to male students who had satisfactory standing at the senior year level in the six scientific colleges of King Abdulaziz University in spring 1981. A total of 236 students comprised the sample for the study. The data used were collected from student files in the registrar's office at King Abdulaziz University.