The Postcode Lottery: How the study of SQA Advanced Higher Mathematics impacts academic performance at university

To gain access to higher education degree programmes, Scottish domiciled students must obtain the relevant grades in Scottish Higher qualifications typically achieved in either of the final two years of secondary school (S5 and S6). However, for S6 pupils who have already obtained a Higher in a given subject but wish to study further, there exists the opportunity to sit a more advanced qualification – the Advanced Higher. Advanced Highers are, while not required, viewed favourably by many higher education institutions, and are often specified as recommended – especially for STEM programmes. However, the ability of schools to offer Advanced Highers to their pupils can depend on school resources and/or student take-up. Schools in Scotland’s most deprived areas also do not run as many Advanced Higher subjects as schools in the least deprived areas. This is potentially problematic since the degree-level performance of students could be enhanced by obtaining a qualification that was not available to every Scottish pupil. This paper explores this issue through application of Logistic Regression models to student data from the Mathematics and Statistics Department of one Scottish higher education institution. The aim was to determine any differences in the degree-level performance of students who obtained/did not obtain an Advanced Higher in a Mathematics subject.