Abstract:

This paper introduces an innovation software which is an analytical dashboard for comparing the impact of universities’ entry qualifications on students’ academic performance. The purpose of this work is to establish whether the qualifications at entry (like GCSE, A-levels, BTEC, etc.) can be used as a predictor of the eventual degree level performance. Inspired by the data visualization analytical dashboards, the aim of the software is to provide teachers and students an intuitive software tool to compare the students’ entry qualification with modules’ results and degree classification. In order to collect data, an online survey function is available. After registering an account, students can fill in the questionnaire with information such as entrance examination type, major, course title, etc. After the questionnaire is completed, students can enter the data analysis platform to view the results. Teachers can directly register, log in and enter the data analysis platform to see the comparison of students' entrance exams and academic results, including three kinds of comparison:
a) Entry Qualifications (examinations’ results) VS. Academic Performance (modules’ results),
b) Courses VS. Academic Performance (modules’ results) and
c) Further Comparisons, namely comparison of the academic performance between institution/schools, entry qualifications, and students’ background.

The proposed analytical dashboard has been tested on both the control and services layers to ensure that the backend communication of the software functions properly. Students from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications have participated in filling in the data collection questionnaire. At the same time, some initial data has been added to enrich the database so that the filtering function can be well displayed.

Future work will be devoted to broadening the dimensions of data analysis, carrying out more in-depth analysis, making better presentations and improving the performance of software.

Keywords:

Analytical dashboard, higher education, entry qualifications, academic performance.