Abstract summary 

School failure among Grade 1 pupils and the subsequent drop out rate is of major concern in South Africa, especially as far as Black pupils are concerned. The school drop out rate is estimated to be four times higher in Black pupils than White children. The dilemma for the professionals in assessing children, who are experiencing difficulty at school, and who are from disadvantaged, non-English speaking communities, is the paucity of reliable, objective tests to identify children at risk. The purpose of this study was to determine whether commercially available 'culture fair' tests could be used to evaluate Black pupils early in Grade 1 and if they were associated with educational success. A parental questionnaire was used to examine non-academic predictors of educational success, such as birth history, socio-economic status and the medical profile. One hundred and three Grade 1 pupils were tested in the first term. The tests used were the Griffiths Mental Developmental Scales, WISC mazes, Raven's Progressive Matrices, Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration (VMI), Motor-free Visual Perceptual Test (MVPT), Test of Visual Perceptual Skills (TVPS) and the Draw-a-Person Test (DAP). Several backward elimination stepwise regression analysis procedures were used to examine the multivariate associations between the psychometric and nonacademic variables and three outcome variables, namely the mid and end of year aggregates and a pass/fail dichotomous variable. Non-academic variables that were significantly associated with academic success were asphyxia, overcrowding and maternal education. The psychometric subtests that were significantly associated with academic achievement were the VMI, DAP, the Raven's Progressive Matrices, TVPS and WISC mazes. Commercially available 'culture fair' tests are significantly associated with educational success in Black Grade 1 pupils where standardised, comprehensive tests are not available. To evaluate to what extent these tests would be reliable predictors of educational success further studies would have to analyse a larger cohort of pupils.

Authors & Co-authors:  Venter André A Bham Amina A

Study Outcome 

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