Criteria for selection of the best student at UPSI based on analytical hierarchy process

Abstract

Every year, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) needs to choose the best graduating student to be awarded during the convocation ceremony. Normally, the candidate selection in Malaysian public universities is carried out through an evaluation process by the faculty/university, however this process is less efficient. To prevent biases, several criteria need to be considered. Therefore, this research utilizes Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to identify and prioritize the criteria for selecting the most suitable candidate among undergraduate students in UPSI. There are two phases in this research. Phase 1 involves in developing a questionnaire that contains a list of criteria that an excellent student must have. The questionnaire has been distributed to the experts to check the validity and a group of lecturers have been selected to test the reliability of the questionnaire as well as to shortlist the main criteria to be considered and included in Phase 2 of this research. In Phase 2, an AHP decision matrix is developed, and the candidates will be ranked based on the selected criteria obtained from Phase 1 and their weight values. The candidate with the highest priority value will be chosen as the best student. Five lecturers were involved as a decision maker in Phase 2 of this research. The analysis through AHP found that CGPA greater than 3.75 were the most important criteria and among eight candidates, Candidate 3 is the best student with score of 0.168. The result obtained in this research gives a list of must-have criteria to be an excellent student and also shows that the AHP method is very useful in making a decision that involves many choices. Thus, this method is relevant to be used as a method for selecting an undergraduate best student. The implication of the study is the AHP method can be applied in the educational field since it is consistent and can reduce bias.