Mapping the relation between University access test and student’s university performance

Abstract

The access test is the most used tool to evaluate the initial preparation of an italian student before enrolling at the university. Although the necessity to select the most deserving students seem unquestionably reasonable, we have to wonder if it appears to be a good predictor of university performance. In order to answer this question, the university careers of the students enrolled at two Degree Courses at the University of Palermo (academic year 2013/2014) were analysed. The very aim of this paper is to propose a graphical tool, the Student Efficiency Nomogram, that shows the access test scores together with the first-year performance of the student.