Allowing course compensation in higher education: a latent class regression analysis to evaluate performance on a follow-up course

In this study, the consequences of allowing course compensation in a \nhigher education academic dismissal policy are evaluated by examining \nperformance on a second-year follow-up (i.e. sequel) course that builds \non material from a first-year precursor course. Up to now, differences in \nthe consequences of compensation on student performance across \ngroups of students who portray different unobserved study processes \nwere not considered. In this study we used a latent class regression \nmodel to distinguish latent groups of students. Data from two undergraduate curricula were used and latent classes were formed based on \nsimilar patterns in averages, variability in grades, the number of compensated courses, and the number of retakes in the first year. Results \nshow that students can be distinguished by three latent classes. \nAlthough the first-year precursor course is compensated in each of \nthese latent classes, low performance on the precursor course results in \nlow performance on the second-year sequel course for psychology students who belong to a class in which the average across first-year \ncourses is low and the average number of compensated courses and \nretakes are high. For these students, compensation on a precursor \ncourse seems more likely to relate to insufficient performance on a \nsequel course