On the relationship between entry qualifications and first year performance in engineering students

This paper examines the link between entry qualifications and first year performance in engineering degrees at the University of the West of England, Bristol. The primary qualifications considered are A levels and successful completion of the Engineering Foundation year. Although the entry does include applicants with other types of qualification, none of these appears frequently enough to support statistical analysis. Accepted wisdom suggests that applicants with higher results in their entry qualifications should perform better at degree level. The first purpose of this study is to evaluate the truth of this belief for a group of engineering degrees. Secondly, the study investigates whether entrants who have completed an Engineering Foundation year (because they were not qualified for direct degree entry) tend to exhibit any systematic differences in performance when compared to the more "traditional" A level entrant.