A Comparative Study of the Mature Students and the Regular Students’ Programmes of Delta State University, Abraka, Nigeria

The research investigated academic achievement in two first degree programmes. These are the mature students’ programme and the regular students’ programme. The two programmes run side by side. The intention was to see whether the achievement of students in the two programmes is comparable. The mature students’ programme is mounted for people of mature age, 30 years and above, while the regular students’ programme has students of ages 17 to 23, but with similar entry qualifications. It was an inferential study and the design was the two-group comparison design; and it was guided by seven research hypotheses. The population was about 4,000 students, male and female, and the sample was 240. Data was collected from the second semester examination scores of 300 level courses in English Language and Modern Mathematics. The data was analysed with t-test statistic. Of the seven hypotheses tested, 3 showed no significant difference in achievement. The overall achievement, however, was in favour of students in the regular programme. The recommendation was that since the programmes are comparable, the university can justifiably run them for the first degree of the university.