CULTURAL FACTORS AS PREDICTORS OF COGNITIVE TEST PERFORMANCE IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

Abstract

A scan of the international literature suggests the existence in various countries of a persistent culture-based academicperformance gap across various subjects, including computer science, and at different levels of education. Almost twodecades after the formal demise of Apartheid, this study seeks to investigate whether a culture-based academic achievementgap similarly persists in the South African university classroom in the field of information and systems technology. Thisstudy sought to identify whether performance gaps exist between students of different races, home languages and genders ininformation systems and technology education at a South African university. Pre- and post- assessments were conductedwith first year information systems and technology students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in respect of three separatecourses (Databases, Networks, Spreadsheets) attended by the same sample of students during the first semester in 2011.Multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify the extent to which the various independent variables (such as race,home language and gender) contributed to the variance of the dependent variables (improvement (gain) score and post testscore). The findings when using post-test scores as the dependent variable suggested that there were significant culture-baseddifferences in cognitive performance among first year South African university students in information systems andtechnology education. However, there were no significant differences in performance improvement (gain) scores oncognitive testing for the same sample. While Black students were significantly out-performed in terms of test scores, therewere no significant differences in the extent to which students improved their marks over the period of the study (one entiresemester). In fact, Black students improved by a slightly better margin than the Indian students, despite their raw test scoresbeing lower than those for their Indian counterparts. This suggests that despite their disadvantaged educational background,Black students are able to respond as effectively as more advantaged students to an equalised educational context once the‘playing fields are levelled at university.