Statistical analysis of academic performance (by an example from the faculty of economics of Voronezh State University)

Abstract

Importance. We live in a world in which educational processes are one of the constituent components of the modern society life. It is a well-known fact that higher education processes play an important role in achieving both individual and collective effectiveness. Therefore, they are subject to careful state and public monitoring. Objectives. Identification of statistically significant determinants of students' academic performance and in order to improve the quality of the educational process. Methods. During the research, we used parametric and nonparametric methods of data analysis and machine learning. We formed the research information base using data on educational activities, academic performance, points on the Unified State Exam, as well as generalized address data of students in the bachelor's degree in the areas of "Economics", "Management" 2013-2015 recruitment. Results. In the empirical part of the study, we tested several working hypotheses about the relationship of student academic performance with home region, gender, source of funding for educational activities, and the results of entrance tests. We also tested the hypothesis about the relationship between the completion of the educational activities of students due to academic failure and their low entrance score. We found that school-related stress has little to no impact on academic performance. Female students show better results in both areas of training. Girls who study at the expense of the federal budget demonstrate greater motivation for high academic performance compared to students at their own expense. There were no statistically significant linear relationships between the entrance scores and student performance. It would be unfair not to mention that fact that students completing their educational activities due to academic failure entered mainly with low total USE scores. Therefore it makes sense to significantly strengthen fundamental training, namely the classroom load in the disciplines of the basic part of the curriculum, develop convergent educational areas, and also strengthen interdisciplinary ties and the practice of studying the logic of cognition in order to smooth out the heterogeneity in the formation of competencies among students.