Otago course pass rates
September 11th, 2012 at 9:00 am by David FarrarA contact has passed onto me the pass rates over the last three years for courses at Otago University. What is very interesting is how many courses, especially in Dentistry, have a 100% pass rate or 0% failure rate. I understand at other universities like VUW they audit any course which has a failure rate of below 20% as probably having a design problem.
At Otago only 10% of the courses have a failure rate of over 20%. Makes you wonder.
The pass rates are over the break
September 11th, 2012 at 9:11 am
There’s no surprise – many of those classes have competitive entry. In a class filled with people who needed 85% to get in, incredibly few are going to bomb out. What’s wrong with that?
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:12 am
You need to present/look at the full picture before making conclusions based on a specific dataset like above. E.g. What is a failure? Is a withdrawal included? You don’t know I suspect.
Also one needs to include the entry requirements for the courses in any argument. I don’t think you’ve thought through this post very well.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:21 am
In 2005 Otago was ranked 79th in the world university rankings. In 2012 it is ranked 133rd. I wonder if making passing easy has contributed to the change?
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:26 am
IS this an aggregation of all courses or just final year? What is ‘Classics’? According to the university there are over 25 different classics courses up to and including level 4
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:30 am
The education sector has become a self regulating industry,dependant on the tax payer and propped up by fee paying overseas students.
It’s not about education.
If they failed foreign students in big numbers they’d find somewhere that doesn’t.
Who will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs and thereby endanger all those cushy professorships etc?
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:34 am
Yes – a lot of the courses near the top have competitive entry and in many cases a large number of overseas students, who of course tend not to spend their “varsity” days on wine, women, and song aka sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.
It is also no surprise that those courses near the bottom are those where you can’t wing it with BS, such as chemistry and mathematics
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:37 am
David, these are subject level pass rates. The individual courses within each subject would have a higher variation in pass rate.
Additionally, Otago Uni and other providers have been tougher on entry and academic progression in recent years, while loan rules have also required students to pass courses to remain eligible. They ahve also been working hard on course design and student support. High pass rates should be expected and welcomed as a result – it’s a good thing.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:38 am
How the hell could you fail education? Did that 5% get lost on the way to Quad 1??
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:41 am
Whilst the second year law pass rates may seem high, you must remember that these are the survivors of first year law where are least 75% of the students failed.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:45 am
Do ethnic minorities get preferential treatment?
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:53 am
Interestingly, many of the B.A courses, often seen as a soft option, have failure rates at the higher end. Perhaps this suggests that this is just a perception and actually you can’t just cruise through a B.A, and people who think they can are destined to fail. Either way good to see there is some enforcement of quality standards in those courses.
Also, @Manolo – Shut up with your pointless bigotry.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:58 am
Under normal circumstances, a pass is an overall grade of 50% or higher.
Students will only get this low due to lack of input (effort), or not seeking help when they need it.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 9:59 am
My understanding is that at VuW is that it’s only lower level papers that are looked at if the pass rate/fail rate don’t match expectations but it doesn’t mean the exam marks will be changed. At higher levels it’s not a big issue – there is an expectation that there ‘ll be huge variability year-to-year due to small class sizes and that people with the ability to pass have self-selected into the courses.
I believe there is some degree of moderation of exam papers across universities so that things don’t get out of whack. Although that has the ability to be gamed now universities are competing on pass rates.
Given the cost of the medical, especially dental, degrees, it’s not surprising that people work hard to pass. If they fail they are left with a huge debt and no way to pay it off.
However, I don’t actually get what the statistics are? If I had to guess I would say they are aggragated pass rates for post-graduate subjects.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 10:01 am
I’d say many could be explained by…
1. Compeditive Entry – if you need to be a bright spark to get into the course in the first place, you’re not likely to fail after that. Also those courses tend to have more attention to individuals.
2. Resits – Many compeditive entry classes have resit options
3. Hard courses – Courses that are odviously hard tend to have students drop out or put the work in to pass
Many BA courses that I’ve heard of have only a couple of essays during term meaning that it’s all on the final exam. That tends to lead to less work put into that course and hence lower marks.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 10:03 am
At Otago you can ask for your Maoriness to be taken into account for entry to 2 nd year law,
so yes manolo;
and there is a bigotry alex,reverse bigotry against academic achievers ,because for every student that goes through because she is a maori means another student didn’t because she wasn’t,that is racial discrimination in an institution that is meant to be about academic achievement.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 10:12 am
See section 1 (h) (i) in the link below.
http://www.otago.ac.nz/courses/qualifications/llb.html#1
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 10:16 am
Thank you for the link, kowtow. It asnwers the question that a soft and sensitive New Age guy, was offended by.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 10:58 am
Alex, you say…
“Interestingly, many of the B.A courses, often seen as a soft option, have failure rates at the higher end. Perhaps this suggests that this is just a perception and actually you can’t just cruise through a B.A”
It’s still easier to cruise through a BA than a law degree. Just look at the marks that people doing double degrees in law and arts get in their arts papers (very high) and compare them with the marks people get in the law papers (generally quite a bit lower). The reason why the law papers may have higher pass rates than some of the BA papers is that the average calibre of the people doing the law degree is so much higher. You need good bursary marks to even get into first year law, and even then 75% of the first years don’t make it into second year.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 11:02 am
@ alex,
Not sure how Manolo’s point could be construed at bigotry. Most people tend to get annoyed when another group gets preferential treatment. It also tends to make people wary of professionals from the group that is held to lower standards.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 11:02 am
As several posters have noted above, many of the high-passrate courses have competitive entry, so failure should be pretty rare.
Some courses are semi-soft options. Eg Portugese. If you are a native Portugese speaker you can take this course and pass without doing any work. Naturally, for those in this position, this is a tempting option! The high passrate reflects self-selection: many of the students taking the course are ones who will find it extra-easy. The course might still be really hard for those who don’t speak Portugese!
Lower passrates in the “soft option” courses may also be self selection. Because the course is seen (rightly or wrongly) as easy, it is chosen by lots of students of limited ability.
Finally, some courses are chosen because they sound like fun, eg Sports Studies. The low passrate is again because it is chosen by students who are looking for something easy (because that is the only kind they will pass). Unfortunately for them, fun does not always mean easy!
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 11:33 am
Also the breakdown is interesting. Some courses are broken down into constituent parts (such as sports studies) where others are just the whole subject (Law).
My sister took sports studies papers as part of her PE degree, liked the content, but the lectuerer was apparently not that flash.
Also the compulsory subjects that I know of on that list have far lower pass rates than the other subjects that use them towards a degree. Which makes sense if you think about it, if you don’t like the subject, but have to take it to get the degree, means that less people are likely to put 100% effort into it, and might fail accordingly.
At least the comp 101 paper has apparently got harder, and no longer teaches you what a mouse is, and how its used on a computer. How that was ever allowed to be a uni paper I will never know.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 11:56 am
mpledger (339) Says:
September 11th, 2012 at 9:59 am
In the Business school at least, all undergraduate course coordinators are required to provide a grade distribution, and to be able to offer a credible explanation as to why they vary significantly from normal or from previous years. If there is no good explanation, adjustments are possible, though rare.
Graduate programmes are generally not expected to conform to normal curves, but your peers look very strangely at you and start asking awkward questions if there are too many A grades, or if no one ever fails.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Just an observation, but is some reality starting to bite at Otago? I note that what used to be Political Science is now just called Politics. Maybe it is my prejudice showing!!
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Come on – dentistry is bloody hard to get into, second only to medicine at Otago. You need pretty much straight A’s at intermediate level, so you start out with a class full of geeks who are accustomed to being at or near the top of their year in high school at least.
A few will bomb at the end of the year as a result of Dunedin’s very seductive student environment, but will then get a chance to ruin their holidays by cramming for specials.
Special exams are justifiable on the basis of taxpayer investment in course places – better to give them a chance to get up to scratch than waste the course place. They’re all capable of passing or they wouldn’t be in the course in the first place.
Ditto medicine, though there are usually a couple of tragic casualties in each class cohort.
I grant you, some of the other results are very suspect indeed – Otago did embrace the bums-on-seats-at-each-level philosophy rather enthusiastically 20 or so years ago, especially in the arts faculty, and began passing pretty much everyone. Shame, it was a good university.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 1:55 pm
I’d like to see Waikato’s results – home of the straight-A degree for all.
Vote:September 11th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Sotware engineering gets 100% pass yet my computer still crashes….
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