The Moderator Effect of Cognitive Modifiability on a Traditional Undergraduate Admissions Test for Disadvantaged Black Students in South Africa

Abstract

Universities in South Africa are faced with the problem of finding admissions criteria, other than high school grades, that are both fair and valid for black applicants severely disadvantaged by an inferior school education. The use of traditional intellectual assessments and aptitude tests (such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test) for disadvantaged and minority students remains controversial as a fair assessment, in that these tests do not take account of potential for change. In this study, therefore, a measure of students' cognitive modifiability, assessed by means of an Interactive Assessment model, was added as a moderator of the traditional intellectual assessment in predicting first-year university success. Cognitive modifiability significantly moderated the predictive validity of the traditional intellectual assessment for a sample of disadvantaged black students enrolled in the first year Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of the Witwatersrand. The higher the level of cognitive modifiability, the less effective were traditional methods for predicting academic success and vice versa. The implications of these findings are discussed.