Arts students fail to scale heights

If you want to increase your chances of getting a good degree at university, avoid the humanities at all costs. High-points Leaving Cert students taking up science at third level are more than twice as likely to be awarded first or upper second class degrees than are their counterparts in the humanities. University students of business and technology also have a better chance of gaining top degrees than do arts students, according to a recently published Points Commission study of the predictive validity of the points system.

Students entering university are much more likely to to graduate with second-class honours, rather than first-class honours or distinctions, than are students in the IT sector, even though they enter third level with higher Leaving Cert grades. Women, too, perform less well at university than their Leaving Cert grades would suggest. Some 27 institutions, including all the colleges of education, the ITs and the universities, supplied first- and final-year examination data from a sample of students who entered in 1992.

The study, entitled Points and Performance in Higher Education: A Study of the Predictive Validity of the Points System, raises a number of important issues for the third-level institutions to consider. Traditionally, the colleges have been wary of releasing information on what they perceive as internal issues. However, the disparities highlighted by this study raise questions about the quality of both the teaching offered by our colleges and the awards they confer - as well as about equality and fairness. According to the study, just under half (46 per cent) of university students entering science are awarded first-class or higher second-level honours degrees. In the humanities, however, it's just 27 per cent. Students entering on lower points have a greater chance of gaining firsts or upper seconds in science than they do in humanities. However, the first-year failure rate among science students with low points is far greater than it is among similar humanities students. At university level, students fail in their early years; no one in the sample left after failing their final exams.

"The noticeable differentiation across disciplines is not new internationally," comments Dr Kathleen Lynch, director of UCD's Centre for Equality Studies and a co-author of the study. `We know that there is a huge difference in faculties and departments in terms of how papers are marked and the proportion of high grades they give. Science subjects are more easily quantified and measured. Traditionally, marking in the arts and humanities is far more subjective." According to Dr Tom Mitchell, Provost of TCD, the study's findings are no surprise.

"They're reflected in the Leaving Cert results, where the number of As in English is far lower than in science subjects," he says. The academic world, he notes, could be as easily impressed by a 2:1 in arts as by a first in engineering. Variations are inevitable, Mitchell says. "Every institution sets its own standards. Some will be tougher than others. If you're in a class where 60 per cent of students have more than 500 points, standards will be higher. Lecturers will expect and get more. There will be different standards in different institutions - we don't want to impose an artificial uniformity. The university system thrives on competition." The Points Commission paper also highlights interesting differences between the universities and the IT sector. In the latter sector, almost twice as many firsts, 2:1s, distinctions and merits are awarded in the humanities (62 per cent) than in science (32 per cent). Far more pass degrees are awarded in the DIT/ IT sector than in the universities, where most people are awarded second-class honours degrees, the study shows. Although there are fewer first-class degrees awarded in the university sector, there are also fewer non-completions.

The issue for the ITs, argues Lynch, is "why is the pass rate so high?" The ITs sell their courses on the basis of the ladder system - that people can transfer from certificate to diploma to degree. However, if you end up with a pass, you can't transfer, she points out. One-third of all students at the ITs either failed first year and left, withdrew before sitting first-year exams or withdrew after passing first-year exams, compared with 9 per cent in the universities. This finding, Lynch says, is supported by international research, which shows that non-completion rates in shorter courses tend to be higher. There are many more of these in the IT sector than in the universities, she notes. In the ITs, 8 per cent of students fail their final exams. Non-completion rates are highest in the area of technology - half of all technology students fail to complete, the study reports.

In spite of girls' higher Leaving Cert grades, the study notes "very noticeable gender differences" in the awards of higher honours degrees at the university level. Thirty-nine per cent of men and 29 per cent of women are awarded first and upper second class degrees. ""This suggests that women are under-performing in higher education relative to their potential at entry," the study says. The disproportion is even greater in humanities subjects alone. In both business and technological subjects, women remain under-represented in the first and upper second class awards. In the ITs, women outperform men in business, but in all other fields the proportion of high-achieving women is lower.

One Cambridge study of college grades suggests that in arts subjects, gender differences may arise from assessment standards. Men and women have different writing styles: women are cautious and are willing to consider a range of views, while men are argumentative and self-assertive, opt for a particular viewpoint and happily dismiss others. In history, the Cambridge report states, good undergraduate writing is defined in more masculine terms.

Lynch argues in favour of anonymous or blind marking of exams.

"We have been using anonymous marking for the last three years," says Mitchell. "It works, it's not hugely expensive to introduce, there are no pitfalls and there's no reason not to do it."