Analysis of Factors Affecting Academic Performance of Mathematics Education Doctoral Students: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Abstract

Student academic performance is an important indicator of doctoral education quality, but limited research has focused on how multiple influential factors of doctoral students' academic performance work together. This study aims to explore the factors significantly affecting the academic performance of mathematics education doctoral students in Indonesia. Several factors were recognized from prior studies, such as the fear of delay, student engagement, parental support, teacher support, facilitating conditions, stress level, and well-being. An online questionnaire was designed and answered by a total of 147 mathematics education doctoral students. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was adopted to analyze the questionnaire data. The results suggested that teacher support had the strongest positive effects on mathematics education doctoral students' academic performance in Indonesia. Student engagement was the most significant positive factor in improving doctoral students' well-being, while parental support could most significantly reduce their stress levels. Practically, these results are expected to provide implications to universities and supervisors regarding the improvement of doctoral students' well-being to promote their academic success and further the quality of doctoral programs in education. Theoretically, these results can also contribute to building an empirical model that can be used to explore and explain how multiple factors could affect doctoral students' academic performance in other contexts.