Abstract:
The effectiveness of enabling or bridging programs as a necessary precursor to undergraduate university education requires sustantiation for a wider range of tertiary students. There are many variables likely to affect the academic success of mature-age students who enter university through enabling programs: age, gender, educational and occupational history, family circumstances, ability, self-confidence, achievement goals, and approaches to self-regulation of academic behaviour. Two cohorts of students who completed a one-year enabling program were traced into their undergraduate studies, and comparisons were made of their academic success with other students who were enrolled in the same subjects. Gathering data on background variables, measures of ability, and psychological constructs has produced a particularly rich array of variables with which to explore the academic progress of mature-age students in undergraduate courses. As two levels of data exist (the individual and the course), the models developed are being analysed using the multilevel analysis program MLn.