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 is inspite 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 class, especially in mathematics or statistics settings in order to optimally leverage learning outcomes.