Academic Achievement In College Research Articles

Predictors of College Academic Achievement for Medical Students: The Case of Gondar University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ethiopia.

In Ethiopia, the University Entrance Exam (UEE) score is the only criteria for selecting prospective medical students entering the university system, disregarding their career choice motivation. A cross-sectional study design was conducted to identify medical students career choice motivation and predictors of college academic achievement at Gondar university, Ethiopia. The study was conducted on 222 medical students enrolled at Gondar University in 2016. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on study participants demographic characteristics, career choice motivation, and informed career choice. Data on the UEE score and student's college academic achievement were collected from the university registrar. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Desire to help others as a medical doctor and prevent and cure diseases were mentioned as the first important career choice reasons by 147 (68.2%) and 135 (64.0%) study participants, respectively. The results of regression analysis showed that the UEE score was significantly associated with pre-clinical cumulative GPA (R2=.327, p<.05) and 5th year cumulative GPA (R2=.244, p<.05) respectively. The stepwise multiple regression revealed that UEE score, having prior knowledge about medical profession, positive experience in the medical school, and intrinsic career choice motivation significantly predicted 5th year cumulative GPA (p<.05). The high beta weight of 0.254 and 0.202 confirmed the strongest prediction to come from prior knowledge about the medical profession and positive experience in medical school, respectively. The UEE score is a significant predictor for medical students' academic achievement, but it should not be the sole admission criterion. We suggest that comprehensive admissions criteria covering both cognitive and non-cognitive factors, as well as informed career choice, be developed to select the best applicants in the future.

Nightly sleep duration predicts grade point average in the first year of college

Academic achievement in the first year of college is critical for setting students on a pathway toward long-term academic and life success, yet little is known about the factors that shape early college academic achievement. Given the important role sleep plays in learning and memory, here we extend this work to evaluate whether nightly sleep duration predicts change in end-of-semester grade point average (GPA). First-year college students from three independent universities provided sleep actigraphy for a month early in their winter/spring academic term across five studies. Findings showed that greater early-term total nightly sleep duration predicted higher end-of-term GPA, an effect that persisted even after controlling for previous-term GPA and daytime sleep. Specifically, every additional hour of average nightly sleep duration early in the semester was associated with an 0.07 increase in end-of-term GPA. Sensitivity analyses using sleep thresholds also indicated that sleeping less than 6h each night was a period where sleep shifted from helpful to harmful for end-of-term GPA, relative to previous-term GPA. Notably, predictive relationships with GPA were specific to total nightly sleep duration, and not other markers of sleep, such as the midpoint of a student's nightly sleep window or bedtime timing variability. These findings across five studies establish nightly sleep duration as an important factor in academic success and highlight the potential value of testing early academic term total sleep time interventions during the formative first year of college.

Performance on Reading Comprehension Assessments and College Achievement: A Meta-Analysis

ABSTRACT Reading comprehension assessments are used for postsecondary course placement and advising, and they are components of college entrance exams. Therefore, a quantitative understanding of the relationship between reading comprehension assessments and postsecondary academic achievement is needed. To address this need, we conducted a meta-analysis to examine how well performance on college reading assessments (e.g., ACT, COMPASS, Nelson-Denny, SAT) correlated with academic achievement (GPA and college grades). Additionally, to help explain the variation in previous findings, we examined whether the type of reading assessment used, performance indicator, publication bias, or year of publication served as moderators. Results based on 26 studies and a total of 25,090 students revealed a small association between performance on reading comprehension assessments and college grades (r = .29, SE = .02, 95% CI [.25, .33], p < .001), with no variation based on study moderators. These findings highlight the importance of college students’ reading comprehension skills for college academic achievement.

Sleep disparities in the first month of college: implications for academic achievement.

We investigated sleep disparities and academic achievement in college. Participants were 6,002 first-year college students attending a midsize private university in the southern United States [62.0% female, 18.8% first-generation, 37.4% Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) students]. During the first 3-5 weeks of college, students reported their typical weekday sleep duration, which we classified as short sleep (<7 hours), normal sleep (7-9 hours), or long sleep (>9 hours). The odds for short sleep were significantly greater in BIPOC students (95% CI: 1.34-1.66) and female students (95% CI: 1.09-1.35), and the odds for long sleep were greater in BIPOC students (95% CI: 1.38-3.08) and first-generation students (95% CI: 1.04-2.53). In adjusted models, financial burden, employment, stress, STEM academic major, student athlete status, and younger age explained unique variance in sleep duration, fully mediating disparities for females and first-generation students (but only partially mediating disparities for BIPOC students). Short and long sleep predicted worse GPA across students' first year in college, even after controlling for high school academic index, demographics, and psychosocial variables. Higher education should address sleep health early in college to help remove barriers to success and reduce disparities.

Reading and Writing Instruction for Academically At-Risk Deaf and Hard of Hearing First-Year College Students

Objective/Research Question: Students with disabilities, including deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students, are enrolling in college at rates higher than in the past with most of them pursuing an associate’s degree. For DHH students, their reading ability is a predictor of their academic achievement in college. However, more than half of DHH students enroll in remedial reading and writing college courses indicating they are not reading and writing at a college level and putting them at-risk for non-completion. In addition, remedial reading and writing courses often do not count for credit toward graduation and may hinder rather than support student progress. One way to mitigate the need for remedial coursework during college is to provide the remedial instruction in a low-stakes manner through summer bridge to college programs. The purpose of the present study was to measure the effects of remedial reading and writing instruction provided through a summer bridge program on first-year, academically at-risk DHH college students’ ( N = 20) reading and writing abilities. Methods: Using a pretest/posttest design, we implemented remedial reading and writing instruction for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week for 5 weeks. Results: Upon the completion of instruction, the student participants’ reading and writing skills improved. Conclusions/Contributions: Our findings may encourage researchers to attempt remedial instruction through summer bridge programs with other populations with disabilities or English language learners.

Early Academic Momentum: Factors Contributing to Community College Transfer Students’ STEM Degree Attainment

Guided by the notion of academic momentum, this study drew data from longitudinal transcript records at a large public 4-year research university and examined factors that specifically contribute to community college transfer students’ academic momentum. It also explored how early academic momentum along with students’ sociodemographic characteristics impact degree attainment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields of study. This study conducted multinomial logistic regression analysis and found that certain students’ background characteristics (i.e., gender, age, and family income), community college academic achievement (i.e., associate degree completion, and number of community college credits accepted), and early academic performance at the 4-year university (math and English preparedness, number of credit hours attempted, and first-semester grade point average) were significantly related to transfer students’ likelihood of obtaining a STEM degree. The findings provide new knowledge about academic momentum and could be used to enhance the community college pathway to STEM degree completion.

Are performance–avoidance goals always deleterious for academic achievement in college? The moderating role of social class

Abundant research has shown that the endorsement of performance–avoidance goals in academic contexts is associated with negative outcomes, including poor academic achievement. The present study tests students’ social class as a moderator of the relationship between performance–avoidance goals and achievement. Two hundred thirty students (106 lower-class students and 124 upper-class students, Mage = 18.57, SD = 1.28) were asked to report the highest academic degree obtained by their mother and father and complete a performance–avoidance goal scale. Participants’ initial academic level was measured. In addition, depending on the condition, they were led to believe they had great (vs. poor) chances to succeed at the university. They then solved Advanced Progressive Matrices measuring their achievement. As expected, performance–avoidance goals negatively predicted achievement only for lower-class students, and this moderation mainly appeared for high academic achievers. The manipulation of the success versus failure expectancies did not moderate the effect. These results confirm that the adoption of performance–avoidance goals would be especially deleterious for lower-class students who succeed, supporting an interpretation in terms of the upward mobility process lower-class students achieve when succeeding in higher education.

Bunny Hill or Black Diamond: Differences in Advanced Course‐Taking in College as a Function of Cognitive Ability and High School GPA

AbstractCollege students commonly have considerable course choice, and they can differ substantially in the proportion of their coursework taken at an advanced level. While advanced coursework is generally viewed as a desirable component of a student's education, research has rarely explored differences in student course‐taking patterns as a measure of academic success in college. We examined the relationship between the SAT, high school grade point average (HSGPA), and the amount of advanced coursework taken in a sample of 62 colleges and 188,985 students. We found that both the SAT and HSGPA predict enrollment in advanced courses, even after controlling for advanced placement (AP) credits and demographic variables. The SAT subtests of Critical Reading, Writing, and Math displayed differential relationships with advanced course‐taking dependent on student major. Gender and race/ethnicity were also related to advanced course‐taking, with women taking more advanced courses in all major categories except for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) where they took fewer, even after controlling for other variables. Socioeconomic status had a negligible relationship with advanced course‐taking. This research broadens our understanding of academic achievement in college and the goals of admissions in higher education.

The long-term effects of early adolescents’ achievement goals on help-seeking behavior development and college academic engagement and achievement

The long-term effects of early adolescents’ achievement goals on help-seeking behavior development and college academic engagement and achievement

Who benefits from mastery-approach and performance-approach goals in college? Students’ social class as a moderator of the link between goals and grade

Although approach forms of achievement goals (mastery and performance goals) have been shown to predict academic achievement in college, recent research underscores that these associations are rather weak and not consistently observed. The present study tests students’ social class (in the present research, generational status) as a moderator of the relationships between both mastery-approach goals and performance-approach goals and final grade. One hundred students (45 first-generation students and 55 continuing-generation students, M age = 18.9, SD = 1.52) answered an achievement goal scale related to one of their classes at the beginning of the year. Their final grade for this class was obtained three months later. As expected, performance-approach goals positively predicted final grade only for upper-class students, while mastery-approach goals tend to do so for lower-class students, supporting the idea that different kinds of motivation could predict students’ achievement depending on their social class.

Longitudinal influence of alcohol and marijuana use on academic performance in college students.

BackgroundAlcohol and marijuana are the two most abused substances in US colleges. However, research on the combined influence (cross sectional or longitudinal) of these substances on academic performance is currently scant.MethodsData were derived from the longitudinal 2-year Brain and Alcohol Research in College Students (BARCS) study including 1142 freshman students who completed monthly marijuana use and alcohol consumption surveys. Subjects were classified into data-driven groups based on their alcohol and marijuana consumption. A linear mixed-model (LMM) was employed using this grouping factor to predict grade point average (GPA), adjusted for a variety of socio-demographic and clinical factors.ResultsThree data-driven clusters emerged: 1) No/low users of both, 2) medium-high alcohol/no-low marijuana, and 3) medium-high users of both substances. Individual cluster derivations between consecutive semesters remained stable. No significant interaction between clusters and semester (time) was noted. Post-hoc analysis suggest that at the outset, compared to sober peers, students using moderate to high levels of alcohol and low marijuana demonstrate lower GPAs, but this difference becomes non-significant over time. In contrast, students consuming both substances at moderate-to-high levels score significantly lower at both the outset and across the 2-year investigation period. Our follow-up analysis also indicate that when students curtailed their substance use over time they had significantly higher academic GPA compared to those who remained stable in their substance use patterns over the two year period.ConclusionsOverall, our study validates and extends the current literature by providing important implications of concurrent alcohol and marijuana use on academic achievement in college.

Hope and the Academic Trajectory of College Students

Previous longitudinal studies of student hope have established a connection between how people think about the future and their college achievement. This study examined the role of hope in predicting the achievement and retention of college students while controlling for educational history and two other psychological constructs, academic self-efficacy and engagement. Hope, self-efficacy, engagement were all correlated with both the number of semesters enrolled and cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) for the first 4 years of college. Hope was the only factor that had unique effects when examining predictors simultaneously and controlling for academic history. Hope uniquely predicted the number of enrolled semesters, whether students returned for the 2nd semester of college, whether students graduated in 4 years, and students’ GPAs across 4 years of college. Results therefore indicate that hope was the most robust predictor of academic achievement in college after controlling for educational history. These findings point to a need to help students develop the capacity to initiate and sustain movement toward goals in the pursuit of higher academic achievement.

Academic Motivation And Self-Regulated Learning In Predicting Academic Achievement in College

The purpose of this study was to determine whether academic motivation and academic self-regulated learning predicted students’ GPAs in the Early Childhood Education Department. The study participants consisted of 166 early childhood education majors enrolled in the 2014 spring semester at Georgia Southern University, USA. Data were gathered using the “academic motivation scale” developed by Vallerand et al. (1992), and the “academic self-regulated learning scale” developed by Mango (2010). The study’ s results showed that there was no correlation between GPA and academic motivation and academic self-regulation learning. In other words, the students’ academic motivation and academic self-regulated learning total scores, together, did not predict their GPA.

대학입학유형이 대학생활적응과 학업성취도에 미치는 영향 - 일개 대학 간호학과 학생을 대상으로

대학입학유형이 대학생활적응과 학업성취도에 미치는 영향 - 일개 대학 간호학과 학생을 대상으로

Executive functioning difficulties as predictors of academic performance: Examining the role of grade goals

Concepts related to self-regulation have emerged repeatedly in research on college academic achievement. We hypothesized that self-reported executive functioning (EF) deficits would predict academic performance and investigated whether grade goals could account for this relationship. In Study 1 we obtained data on the Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale (BDEFS) and self-reported GPA from co-educational university students (N=250). In Study 2, we collected BDEFS and GPA goals from students at a women’s college (N=229) and obtained grades from the registrar. EF deficits predicted GPA concurrently and prospectively even when controlling for prior grades. Self-motivation problems were most consistently related to grades and mediation analysis revealed a significant indirect effect via lower grade goals. However, goals did not fully account for this relationship. While our results suggest potential value for goal-setting interventions, additional measures to improve self-regulation are likely needed to help struggling students with self-motivation problems.

Accuracy of Self-Reported College GPA: Gender-Moderated Differences by Achievement Level and Academic Self-Efficacy

Assessments of college academic achievement tend to rely on self-reported GPA values, yet evidence is limited regarding the accuracy of those values. With a sample of 194 undergraduate college students, the present study examined whether accuracy of self-reported GPA differed based on level of academic performance or level of academic self-efficacy and whether those differences were moderated by gender and year in college. Significant gender differences were found only within the lower academic performance group and the lower academic self-efficacy group, with females on average overreporting their actual college GPA and males on average underreporting their actual college GPA. Thus, research on college achievement that is conducted with students in lower achieving groups or with lower academic self-efficacy may benefit from the use of university-record GPA data as opposed to self-report data and may need to consider gender differences carefully to guard against potential bias in self-reported values for these groups.

Making a Way to Success: Self-Authorship and Academic Achievement of First-Year African American Students at Historically Black Colleges

The purpose of the study was to estimate the relationship between academic achievement in college, as defined by first-year grade point average (GPA), and self-authorship among African American first-year students at an HBCU ( N = 140), using hierarchical linear regression techniques. A single research question guided this investigation: What is the relationship between measures of self-authorship and the academic achievement of African American collegians at HBCUs, controlling for potentially confounding differences? Findings reveal that self-authorship predicts first-year GPA above and beyond background characteristics and traditional measures of academic preparation for college (e.g., high school GPA, ACT/SAT); the final regression model accounts for approximately 58% of the variance in the dependent variable.

Social class and academic achievement in college: The interplay of rejection sensitivity and entity beliefs.

Undergraduates, especially those from lower income backgrounds, may perceive their social class background as different or disadvantaged relative to that of peers and worry about negative social treatment. We hypothesized that concerns about discrimination based on one's social class (i.e., class-based rejection sensitivity or RS-class) would be damaging to undergraduates' achievement outcomes particularly among entity theorists, who perceive their personal characteristics as fixed. We reasoned that a perceived capacity for personal growth and change, characteristic of incremental theorists, would make the pursuit of a college degree and upward mobility seem more worthwhile and attainable. We found evidence across 3 studies that dispositionally held and experimentally primed entity (vs. incremental) beliefs predicted college academic performance as a function of RS-class. Studies 1a and 1b documented that high levels of both entity beliefs and RS-class predicted lower self-reported and official grades, respectively, among undergraduates from socioeconomically diverse backgrounds. In Study 2, high entity beliefs and RS-class at matriculation predicted decreased year-end official grades among lower class Latino students. Study 3 established the causal relationship of entity (vs. incremental) beliefs on academic test performance as a function of RS-class. We observed worse test performance with higher RS-class levels following an entity (vs. incremental) prime, an effect driven by lower income students. Findings from a 4th study suggest that entity theorists with RS-class concerns tend to believe less in upward mobility and, following academic setbacks, are prone to personal attributions of failure, as well as hopelessness. Implications for education and intervention are discussed.

Psychological, cognitive, and personal variables that predict college academic achievement among health sciences students

There are many factors that affect college academic achievement among health sciences students. The aim of this study was to examine selected psychological, cognitive, and personal variables that affect students' academic achievement among health sciences college students in Saudi Arabia. A correlational descriptive cross-sectional design was employed to collect data on the studied variables from 510 health sciences students (Medicine, Nursing, Respiratory Therapy, and Pharmacy Doctor) employing self-administered questionnaire. Results showed that students experienced low level of self-esteem and low level of student-faculty interaction; and high level of achievement motivation and satisfaction with life. Also, they reported mild levels of depression and stress and a moderate level of anxiety. Female students reported higher level of achievement motivation, depression, anxiety, and stress; while male students reported a higher level of self-esteem. Results also showed that achievement motivation, mothers' educational level, working besides studying, gender, aptitude test score, and depression level were the best predictors of academic achievement and accounting for 43% of the total variance. Several psychological, cognitive, and personal variables were found to affect college academic achievement among health sciences students. Recommendations and implications to enhance students' academic achievement are discussed.

The Relationship of Parental Involvement, College Life Adaptation and Academic Achievement in First Year College Students

The Relationship of Parental Involvement, College Life Adaptation and Academic Achievement in First Year College Students