The reasons may vary. One very common reason given, especially by learners who are actually doing well in IT, is the urge for obtaining the highest possible APS score so that they can stand a better chance to gain admission to programmes where numbers are limited thus very strong competition for admission exists, such as medicine.
Arguments such as ‘it will leave me with more time for Maths or Science which is crucial for admission purposes’; ‘it is hard to obtain an A in IT, while with less effort and time, I will certainly obtain one in subject X and I need a high APS score’
Other reasons may be lack of commitment, perseverance and motivation to not being used to hard work, study habits, the demands of the subject, etc.
At tertiary level one seems to find a similar phenomenon when it comes to majors. According to the article,
...professors who study the phenomenon say that introductory courses are often difficult and abstract. Some students say their high schools didn't prepare them for the level of rigor in the introductory courses...
Where does this start?
- At high school because learners opt for ‘softer’ options and are not exposed to the type of higher order thinking that is required in these programmes at tertiary institutions?
- At primary and high school because learners are not exposed to challenging tasks, we do not expect enough of them and therefore they lack a solid foundation, perseverance and commitment?
- Are tertiary institutions partly to blame because of their admission requirements? Should APS scores for ‘harder’ subjects not weigh more? Especially in certain programmes.
Would that not encourage learners at high school to rather take subjects such as IT, teach them perseverence and commitment?
The article also says that according to a study:
the average U.S. student in their sample spent only about 12 to 13 hours a week studying, about half the time spent by students in 1960
They also found that math and science—though not engineering—students study on average about three hours more per week than their non-science-major counterparts
What did some do?
Georgia Institute of Technology split its introductory computer-science class into three separate courses. One was geared toward computer science majors, another to engineering majors, and a third to liberal arts, architecture and management majors. The liberal arts course cut down on computer-science theory in favor of practical tasks like using programming to manipulate photographs, says computer science professor Mark Guzdial. Since the switch, about 85% of students pass
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