Principal Component Analysis of Students’ Academic Performance in Mathematics and Statistics

This study seeks to identify a basis of assessments of students' performance in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of University of Cape Coast. Data on level 300 students in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the 2013/2014 academic year was obtained. These covered ten courses, four of which are mathematics courses and the remaining six (6), statistics. The ten subjects served as variables to be studied each with several observations that are the grades of students in the various courses. Principal Component Analysis was used to analyse the data. This technique is used since the Principal components generated could serve as indices of measuring the students' performance. From the analysis, three principal components were retained as rules or indices for classification of students' performance. The first principal component was used to classify overall performance of students as good, average, below average or excellent. The second principal component was used to classify students on semester basis. That is whether or not the students perform well in either of the semester or both. It was observed that the third principal component can be used to classify the performance of students on subjects' basis. This can either be mathematics or statistics inclined. Thus using the three principal components it was further observed that majority of students exhibited uniform but just average performance in both subjects and in both semesters. A few showed specific strengths in either of the two subjects. This study confirms the notion that only a few students could major in only one subject in the department with greater success