Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students at Pokhara University

The present study was conducted to know and compare the factors affecting academic performance and aspirations of undergraduate students of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. A sample of 150 students was selected through purposive sampling technique from three colleges of PAU, Ludhiana having Government funded programmes namely B.Sc. (Hons.) Home Science, B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture, B. Tech. (Agricultural Engineering and Technology). Data were collected with the help of specially prepared questionnaire. The findings revealed that 53 percentage of students had medium and 19 per cent had high level of academic performance. Significant relationship was observed between academic performance of the students and their health status. Family type, family size, use of internet were significantly associated with academic performance of the students. Significant variations were found among students of different colleges in relation to father’s education, father’s occupation and health status. Health status of students had significant and positive relationship with academic performance of the students. Students should be encouraged to improve their health status.

Peer and near-peer teaching programs are common in medical undergraduate courses. However, there are no studies that have investigated the effectiveness of a near-peer teaching program on the academic performance of undergraduate students pursuing sport and exercise science coursework. This study was conducted to analyze the effectiveness of such a program for students who participated in a course on the functional anatomy of the locomotor apparatus. A total of 39 student participants were divided into two groups: students in one group voluntarily attended at least one session of a near-peer teaching program, and students in the other group attended no sessions. The final grade (range 0-100%) was recorded and used as an indicator of academic performance. The final grade of students who attended the near-peer teaching program (69.5 ± 16.0%) was 38.7% higher (P = 0.002, d = 1.06) than those who did not (50.1 ± 20.4%). When the academic performance of the same students was evaluated in another course (exercise physiology) that did not offer a near-peer teaching program, there were no significant differences between the groups (students who attended or did not attend the near-peer teaching program). A significant positive association was found between near-peer teaching program frequency and the number of students approved and not approved in the course (P = 0.041). A significant difference (P = 0.001) was found in the attendance at regular classes between the group who participated in the near-peer teaching program (median: 62 hours; IQR [interquartile ranges]: 4.0 hours) and those who did not (median: 58 hours; IQR: 4.0 hours). Gender was not a moderating factor on academic performance or near-peer teaching program attendance. These results highlight the effectiveness of a near-peer teaching program on the academic performance of students from a sport and exercise science degree program while enrolled in an anatomy course. Anat Sci Educ. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.

This study was conducted on examining the relationship between stress and academic performance of under-graduate students, from the public and private universities. The objectives of this study was to assess the level of stress due to academic and non-academic factors among under-graduate students from public and private universities, and to find out the difference between stress level of under graduate students from 3rd and final year. This research study was descriptive and quantitative in nature. The population of this study was 473 students from public and private universities. Sample of the study was 210 students. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the sample from the population. Two self-developed research instruments were used to collect information about the stress factors and academic performance in order to analyze the relationship among stress and academic performance of under-graduate students from both private and public universities. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and percentage) and inferential statistics (t-test) to find out the difference between stress and academic performance of students from both, the public and private universities of Pakistan. It was found that students were experiencing considerable stress due to both academic and non-academic factors. When analyzing the academic and non-academic stress factors separately, it was observed that students from both public and private universities were having more stress due to academic factors as compared to non- academic stress factors. Further, the main academic factors that created high stress among students were work load factor and transition from annual to semester system. Moreover, it was also concluded that there is a significant difference between academic stress of under-graduate students from public and private universities. As the findings indicated significant, negative, and weak relationship between stress and academic performance for undergraduate students from both public and private universities, it was recommended to implement regular stress assessments and academic performance evaluations to monitor trends over time. This ongoing evaluation can help universities adapt and refine support mechanisms based on evolving student needs.

The study examined digital resources (DR) usage and academic performance of undergraduate students at the University of Africa, Toru-Orua, Bayelsa State, Nigeria (UAT). Four research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The researchers used a descriptive survey design. The population of the study comprised 1,500 students at UAT, in the 2020/2021 academic session. The questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The questionnaire was validated by educational technology experts. Cronbach’s alpha was used to establish the reliability of the instrument which yielded 0.98. The instrument was administered by the researchers to all the students and was able to retrieve 1,342, which comprised 100 to 400 level students. Data were analyzed with frequency count, simple percentages, and statistical product and service solutions version 23 was used to generate the mean, standard deviation while Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 significant levels. The findings revealed that the level of usage of DR is low as only 4% of the students made use of DR daily. The study established that the students made use of the Internet resources, e-books, and online educational videos on YouTube, e-journals, and e-newspapers. It was also revealed that the students had a positive perception of the impacts of DR usage on their academic performance. Lastly, the test of the hypothesis one showed that there is a significant relationship between DR usage and the academic performance of undergraduate students at UAT. This implies that the increase in the DR usage do definitely increase the performance of the students at UAT. Result from hypothesis two revealed that there is a significant effect of DR usage on academic performance of students at UAT. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended that the university library management should create more awareness on the use of DR by conducting workshop, seminars, and through the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp and hands-on training on the use of these resources should be actively promoted.

A proverb goes that education is the backbone of a nation. No nation can step up without educating the nation. Quality education is achieved by the better academic performance of the students. Indeed, the university is the tertiary education where the undergraduate students are enrolled to appropriate academic excellence that can be transformed to better the nation. There are a variety of positive and negative factors that affect the academic performance of undergraduate students. Here, this study endeavors to identify the success and failure factors influencing the academic performance of Rabindra University, Bangladesh. In doing so, this study is conducted based on primary data. Convenient and cluster random sampling method has been used. Two different questionnaires and opinionnaire are developed for both students and faculties as the instruments of data collection and the 4-point Likert scale of measurement is used to analyze the responses. The findings show that regular attendance, regular study, hard work, dedication & self-Confidence and Support by family members and others have a high impact on the academic performance of undergraduate students. On the other hand, insufficient effort in studying, lack of interest in the subject, the noisy and unfriendly environment in the institution influence inversely. This result will surely help the students, faculties and administration to design policies convenient for the education system of the university and the nation as a whole.

Most people know that academic performance generally refers to how well a student is accomplishing his or her tasks and studies, but there are numbers of factors that determine the level and quality of students’ academic performance. This study investigated the effect of alcohol consumption on the academic performance of undergraduate students. A survey research design was used. A pilot study was carried out with 30 students to validate and determine the psychometric properties of the questionnaires used in this study. Total of 200 respondents, 114 male and 86 females with ages ranging between 13 and 25 years participated in this study. Three hypotheses were tested using Pearson r, T-test, Anova, and simple regression analysis. The result revealed that there is a significant relationship between alcohol consumption and academic performance (R2=0.74,P<.O5), there is a significant difference in academic performance of students that drink alcohol and those that do not (R2=12.22,P<.05), there is a significant effect of alcohol consumption on academic performance(R2=4.474,P<.05). The study has recommendations.

This study aims to explore gender, race, stress and sleep quality as factors which influence the academic performance of undergraduate students. The samples of study involved 80 students from the Faculty of Cognitive Science and Human Development, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. Questionnaire used in the data collection comprising demographic information, stress questionnaire (Student Stress Inventory (SSI)) and sleep quality questionnaire (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)). The academic performance of the undergraduate students in this study was measured by their cumulative grade point average (CGPA). The result of the study showed that female students performed better than male students; whilst non-Bumiputera students performed better than Bumiputera students. The study also found that the higher the stress level of a student (SSI score), the lower his or her CGPA results. Moreover, the findings showed that there is a significant difference in FCSHD undergraduates’ academic performance based on their sleep quality, in which the mean of CGPA for students with good sleep quality is higher than that of students with bad sleep quality. Ultimately, the study reveals that gender and race do play a part in the academic performance of students and having good sleep quality and a little bit of stress is equally important in learning and helpful in attaining good grades and hence, should be leveraged by students.

The main focus of this study was to find out the relative effect of Field Dependent and Field Independent learning styles and a combination of the two on academic performance of undergraduate students of the University of Cape Coast. The quasi-experimental design was employed for the study.A total of 77 subjects completed a questionnaire designed by the researchers before they received treatment on techniques of the 3 learning styles in a pre and post-test design.The formulated hypotheses were tested using the t-test and F ratio at alpha level 0.05. The study revealed that there was significant difference in the academic performance of students who used the three learning styles, namely Field Dependent, Field Independent and a combination of the 2 learning styles.The academic performance of students who used a combination of the two learning styles was slightly higher than that of the remaining two groups at a significant level of 2.66. The study finally showed that the three learning styles when used effectively enriched academic work.

The COVID-19 pandemic has enforced higher education institutions to adopt emergency remote teaching (ERT) as the substitution for traditional face-to-face (F2F) classes. A lot of concerns have been raised among education institutions, faculty, and students regarding the effectiveness of this sudden shift to online learning. This study aims to statistically investigate the impacts of such a transition on the academic performance of undergraduate students enrolled in the Financial Engineering course. A novel rank percentage measure is proposed and employed to compare the academic performance of around 500 students who attended the course during the four semesters, including the transitional disrupted semester by the pandemic, two consecutive online semesters, and the traditional face-to-face classroom. Our analysis emphasizes the significance of the differences between specific subgroups of the students. In particular, academically average to good students with cumulative GPAs greater than 2.90 have been negatively impacted by the transition to online learning, whereas the results for students with cumulative GPAs less than 2.90 are not very conclusive. Realizing the effects of such closures on the academic performance of students is considered important, since the results might have some merits for other courses and instructors. The template model can be transferred to other courses, and employed by the university administrators, specifically for developing policies in emergency circumstances that are not limited to pandemics.

This study examines the impact of online gaming on the academic performance of Pokhara university business students in Kathmandu Valley. Academic performance of business students is the dependent variable. The selected independent variables are online games, social media network, time spent on social media, mobile phones, friends and people connection and internet addictions. The primary source of data is used to assess the opinions of the respondents regarding the impact of online gaming on academic performance of Pokhara university business students in Kathmandu Valley. The study is based on primary data with 123 respondents. To achieve the purpose of the study, structured questionnaire is prepared. The correlation coefficients and regression models are estimated to test the significance and importance of online gaming on academic performance of Pokhara university business students in Kathmandu Valley. The study showed that online gaming has a positive impact on academic performance of business student indicating that playing informative online gaming leads to increase in the level of academic performance of business students. Likewise, the result also revealed that social media network has a positive impact on academic performance of business students. It means that use social media network helps in improving student’s academic performance. Moreover, time spent on social media has a positive impact on academic performance of business students indicating that more the time students spent on social media for the purpose, better would be the academic performance of the students. Moreover, mobile phones has a positive impact on academic performance of business students. It indicates that use of mobile phones helps in improving academic performance of business students. Further, the result shows that friends and people connection has a positive impact on academic performance of business students which means that connecting with friends and people through social media helps students to improve their academic performance.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between social media usage and academic performance of undergraduate students of Sule Lamido University Kafin Hausa. The study was guided by sixteen objectives with three research questions and thirteen hypotheses. The study adopted Social Learning Theory by Albert Bandura (1977) and Student Involvement Theory by Alexander W. Astin (1984). The study adopted correlation and survey research designs. The target population was 5,321 undergraduate students of Sule Lamido University, Damaturu. The sample size was 273 participants. Instrument used to collect data for this study was the Social Media Usage Questionnaire (SMUQ). The Questionnaire items was validated by seven validators. Expert judgment method was used to calculate the validity index and the validity index was found 0.7. Cronbach's Alpha was used to determine the reliability coefficient of the questionnaire and items was found to be reliable at 0.86. The data were analysed using frequencies, percentages, Pearson Product Moment Coefficient (PPMC) and independent samples t-test. Findings showed that: WhatsApp is the most commonly use social media site followed by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Wikipedia. Level of students' usage to social media types was rarely. Undergraduate students of Sule Lamido University use to spend 0-1 hour in a day on social media sites. Some of the reasons for students' usage of social media sites are; learning purpose, communication and interaction, socialisation and leisure; business, politics and regious activities. There was a significant relationship between the use of Facebook, WhatsApp and academic performance of students. It was also revealed that there was no significant relationship between the use of Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Wikipedia and academic performance of students. There was a significant gender difference in the use of Facebook, WhatsApp and academic performance of students. There was no significant gender difference in the use of Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Wikipedia and academic performance of students. The study concludes that, the lecturers, school guidance counselor and parents in particular should collaborate and monitor the behaviour of students towards the use of social media sites. The study recommends the introduction of guidance and counselling specifically meant for social media affairs at the University to help in the mitigation of the social media issues that influence students learning.

Objectives: Procrastination is the deliberate delay or postponement of tasks with an awareness of unfavorable results. Revenge bedtime procrastination refers to the choice of forgoing sleep in favor of leisure time due to a daily schedule devoid of adequate free time. The objective of this study was to determine the correlation between revenge bedtime procrastination and academic performance in undergraduate medical students. Material and Methods: The participants in this study were medical students from different institutes in Lahore. A total of 239 participants completed our online survey. Students previously diagnosed with sleep disorders were excluded from our sample. Our study, which centeredon exploring the correlation between bedtime procrastination as a retaliatory act and academic achievement, employed an online questionnaire containing the academic performance scale (APS) and bedtime procrastination scale (BPS) disseminated through Google Forms. Results: The findings demonstrated a negative correlation between delaying sleep for personal leisure time and academic achievement. The correlation coefficient (R) value between APS and BPS came out to be −0.324, and the P value was 0.01, which means that the relationship is statistically significant. The major demographics came out to age 15–20 years (72.4%) studying Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (87.2%) and Bachelor of Dentistry (10.9%), and the majority of them were in the 1st (37.6%) and 2nd year 51.9% of their degree. Conclusion: This study found a negative correlation between sleep procrastination and academic performance. Variables such as intelligence, motivation, and self-discipline were not considered in our study, and this gap can be filled by future research considering additional variables to gain a more comprehensive understanding of this complex phenomenon.

This study was intended to explore the predictive power of educational attitude and lifestyles for the academic performance of undergraduate students. The study was conducted in Dilla University. The researcher employed survey research design to the study. The data gathered from graduating students of regular program studying in this university. A total of 150 students were selected using simple random sampling technique through lottery system from different fields of studies. After checking the validity and reliability of the instruments, the data was collected using attitude scale with 33 items and lifestyle questionnaires with 38 items. Finally, 138 filled questionnaires were encoded and entered to the analysis system. The data were analyzed using means, percentages, T-test, correlation and linear regression. Hence, the findings of the study revealed that majority 109(79%) of respondents were staying for three years in the study area. Educational attitude is positively and significantly correlated with academic performance(r =.272, p < .01). The result also illustrates that academic performance of students is positively and significantly related with lifestyle variables like self-concept, emotional state and goal orientation(r= .19, r=.17, r=.21, p<.05) respectively. Both educational attitude and lifestyles of students accounts 12% of the variance of academic performance at a significant level of confidence (R= .35, p< .05). Thus, students’ educational attitudes and lifestyles predict academic performance of undergraduate students at significant level. Therefore, concerned bodies should give due attention to student related factors to improve quality of education at higher institutions. Moreover, further studies need to be done on personal factors that influence the academic performance among students in the undergraduate program.

Learning environment plays major role in the life of every individual whether undergraduate students, lecturers, employers or employees. The undergraduate students’ academic performance plays an important role in producing the best quality graduates who will become great leader and manpower for the country thus responsible for the country’s economic and social development. It is on the basis of this background, this study examined the comparative analysis of federal and private universities’ learning environment on academic performance of undergraduate students in Islamic Studies in Ilorin, Nigeria. Causal-comparative research type known as “ex post facto” research method was used for this study. All undergraduate students of federal and private universities in Ilorin, Nigeria constituted the population. Meanwhile, purposive sampling techniques was used to select University of Ilorin and Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Nigeria. Simple random sampling techniques was used to select 160 undergraduate Islamic Studies students from University of Ilorin and Al-Hikmah University respectively. The data for the study was gathered through the use of questionnaire which consisted of 25 items to elicit information from the respondents. The instrument was validated through face and content validity and reliability index yielded 0.78. Three hypotheses were postulated and tested using Independent t-test statistical tool at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that a significant difference existed between federal university male and female undergraduate students, private university male and female undergraduate students and federal and private university undergraduate students’ learning environment on undergraduate students’ academic performance in Islamic Studies in Ilorin, Nigeria. Based on the finding, it was recommended among others that government and private organizations /bodies should intensify efforts to employ more trained and qualified Islamic Studies lecturers at various universities to improve the performance of undergraduate students at all level of education. It was also recommended that government and private organizations /bodies should exposed their undergraduate students to conducive learning environment in order to facilitate better academic performance in students.

This chapter examined the use of social media in libraries and impact on undergraduates. The study covers concepts of utilization of social media: benefits, impact, and challenges that affect the use of social media and academic performance of undergraduate students. The concepts generally implied that social media is the use of technology as the best medium to explore wide area of knowledge to produce positive impact on academic performance of students. There is a direct relationship between social media usage and the academic performance of students. It was recommended among others that awareness programs of use of social media platforms should be provided by the university and library to students; access to use of social media resources and services by librarians should be provided to students; educational forums that will facilitate group collaboration and discussion on academic performance should be promoted in universities; connectivity to social media network sites and internet should be improved to facilitate instant information search by students.