The Analysis of Academic Achievements of Students at Gachon Medical School

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the academic achievement of the first year medical students at Gachon University of Medicine and Science based on their characteristics (i.e. age, gender, and academic degree types (bachelors/masters), field of major (biology/ non-biology), and admission variables (i.e. MEET, GPA, attitude, interview, and English test). Methods: The admission scores and demographic information were obtained from 39 students who had entered the university in 2005. T-test was used to examine the differences in academic achievement according to the students` characteristics. Correlations between admission variables and academic achievements were examined while multiple regression analysis was used to decipher the influence of students` characteristics and admission variables on the academic achievements. Results: This study showed that the academic achievements differed significantly depending on degree level, age, and field of study, but not gender. It was also found that both the Nature Science Reasoning (NSR) of MEET subscale score and GPA score correlated significantly with academic achievement in the first year students. Attitude, interview, and English test scores did not correlate significantly. The result of the multiple regression analysis revealed that NSR 1 and 2, field of major, and age accounted for a substantial amount of the variance in academic achievement. Conclusion: Students with higher scores in NSR 1 and 2 who majored in biology-related fieldsand who are younger tend to do better academically in their first year of medical school. The results of this study may be helpful to graduate medical schools in designing effective admissions strategies for recruiting students, as well as, in planning the curriculum to improve the academic achievements of medical students.