Abilityof theCriteria of Admission ToPost-Graduate Studies in the Department of Educational Policy at King Saud Universityto Predict Students' Academic Achievement

Abstract

This study aims to verify the suitability of thecriteria of admission for post-graduate students in the Department of Educational Policy at King Saud University to predict the academic achievement of students. In addition to this, the study aims to determine whether further criteria such as previous major and University can be used to predict the academic achievement of graduates. The researcher uses the documentary method of using a sample thatconsists of 77 records of graduate students in the Department of Educational Policy. This includes summarizing and classifying data of graduate students prior to entering the graduate program and post-graduation. Subsequently, this data is analyzed and measured using thecorrelation method to identify any correlation between the variables.

The results of the study show that a combination of the current criteria for admission, namely previous grade point average (GPA), admission test and interview have a strong correlation with accurately predicting graduate achievement. The criterion of the interview shows the strongest correlation while the previous GPA is statistically insignificant. Further to this, the study concludes that previous major and University of a graduate have no effect on predicting the academic achievement of graduates. The results also indicate that there is a significant difference between admission criteria attributed to the program of study variable (MS, PhD). However, there is no statistical significance attributed to gender variable (male, female).