Predicting high school students’ academic achievement in international and national programs based on admission examination: a case study from Turkey

Predicting students’ future academic performance is an important discussion in the world of education that began to gain importance more than fifty years ago. Predictions of academic performance is of paramount importance in selecting the most appropriate students. Schools use admission criterion to select students to attend their programs. In this study, relationships between student’s admission and exit performance were examined in a laboratory high school context. The school uses a two-stage high school admission exam. The first step consists of written tests of Turkish Language, mathematics, science, English and a non-verbal reasoning questionnaire, whereas the second stage includes essay writing in Turkish, and interviews about art, music, English, and Turkish. Students’ exit performance is defined by the following scores: (i) IGCSE results in Turkish, English language, English literature, physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics, (ii) IBDP component results in Turkish, English, physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics, (iii) first stage of Turkish university entrance examination results (iv) high school cumulative grade point average. Results indicated that different components of the admission system predict students’ exit performance criteria differently.