Is the SATAP test an indicator of academic preparedness for first year university students?

Various reasons may be advanced for conducting proficiency tests in academic literacy at higher education institutions. The Standardised Assessment Test for Access and Placement (SATAP) aims at determining the academic literacy skills that entry-level students should demonstrate as a predictor of their preparedness and success in tertiary education. At the CPUT the test was written by first year students in the Business Faculty as a means of identifying students who might need academic intervention in order to cope with their studies. The present study investigated whether the SATAP test is a reasonable predictor of academic literacy abilities. The quantitative methodology of data collection, that is, the Swedish ratings of the matriculation examination results were compared with the scores obtained in the SATAP test and their first semester results. A correlations analysis and other statistical techniques were computed using the SPSS package. This study was limited to five groups of students in the Business Faculty. The findings indicate that the SATAP test is actually adequate for assessing and predicting future academic performance of first year students at tertiary institutions, albeit with certain qualifications.J South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 21 (7) 2008: pp. 919-93