Students’ admission into tertiary institutions is an important issue that has generated a lot of public discussion in recent times. The pre-requisite criteria for admitting most students into regular school programmes at tertiary level in Ghana, is usually based on senior high school grades or scores. Having an in-depth knowledge about factors affecting students’ performance more especially during the first year of the Evening School is very important. Knowledge acquired in this area will help school authorities design admission programmes that will render their regular and alternative school sections such as distance and evening school programmes more sustainable. This paper reports on analysis of factors affecting the academic performance of six hundred and ten (610) first year evening school students from 2011 to 2013 academic years of Takoradi Polytechnic. Among other things, the study revealed that 25.4% of variance in evening school students’ academic performance was explained by students’ age at the time of admission, West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) or other examination scores, and total credit hours taken during the first year. Students’ total credit hours taken during the first year, was the best predictor of students’ performance. Also, as students’ total credit hours increases, students tend to perform poorly or students perform well as total credit hours decreases. Management of the Polytechnic are encouraged to explore other factors that significantly affect students’ performance.
Keywords: Evening School, Regression Analysis, Students’ Cumulative Grade Point Average
