The breadth and depth of foundation courses in Qatar's only public institution of higher education

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine the levels of foundation‐year courses at the only public, four‐year institution of higher education in Qatar.Design/methodology/approachA basic crossed design was used to assess the degree to which the number and kind of foundation courses taken related to student enrollment, graduation, academic dismissal and academic performance. A chi‐square statistical analysis, Kruskal‐Wallis analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a repeated measure (MANOVA) were used to address the research questions.FindingsThe results of this study demonstrate that those students who are enrolled in an English foundation course and take at least one or more foundation course are more likely to remain enrolled in the university. In contrast, those students who enroll in more than one mathematics foundation course are more likely to be academically dismissed than to remain at this university. Students who pass through preparatory courses in English have higher scores in both their first and second post‐foundation English courses than those who do not participate in the program. In contrast, students who take foundation courses in mathematics were less likely to do well in post‐foundation courses than those who had not taken foundation courses. Those students who had taken an English foundation course were more likely to fail a post‐foundation course at the university level than to pass such a course. Those students who had taken a mathematic foundation course were just as likely to fail as those students who had not taken one. Generally, those students who went through English and mathematics foundation courses were more likely to perform at a significantly higher level and achieve a higher grade point average than those students who did not complete the preparatory program.Originality/valueA significant role of the preparatory program is to bring students to an academic level that allows them to continue on to regular university programs. This paper is significant because it assesses the worth and benefits of a preparatory program in a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country, which include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).