The Conundrum of Handling Multiple Grouped Statistics Class at a Tertiary Education and the Impact on Student Performance

Abstract

A learning organization is capable of renewing itself. It
consistently reflects and vigorously seeks improvement. This research
focused on course management of a basic statistics course at a university
in Namibia in which multiple groups were taught by different lecturers,
a setting also known as parallel teaching. The total number of students
was 460 split into five groups. Using multiple comparison tests, results
revealed significant variances in assessment marks within and between
four out of the five groups. This can be attributed to a lack of concrete
coordination among lecturers and a possible deficiency in academic peer
interaction between students in the separate groups. However, when
marks were aggregated according to mode of study, results showed that
part-time students were more likely to pass compared to their full-time
counterparts who took the same course (t = 2.7391). This was in spite of
full-time students having more peer interaction and probably less family
responsibilities. This finding could be an indication that full-time
students needed different levels of motivation or study strategy that
resonated with the predominant class management styles. It is
suggested that research should pay more attention to the qualitative
aspects of the problems facing multiple grouped classes, especially in
statistics in order to optimally leverage learning outcomes.