Performance Of Undergraduate Students Research Articles

Effect of E-Learning on Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students at Nankai University, China

The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of e-learning on the academic performance of undergraduate students at Nankai University in China. The study adopted the descriptive research design. Descriptive research design is a type of research design that aims to systematically obtain information to describe a phenomenon, situation, or population. The sample size was 361 students and they were purposively picked. The collection of the data was done using questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential were used to analyze the data. It was found that e-learning is positively and significantly related to academic performance. E-learning is among the expanding areas, particularly in tertiary education. Educational institutions are different in growing nations than in developed nations, like poor quality of education and low chances of attending learning institutions in the local areas because of long distances. E-Learning enhances accessibility to effective learning and therefore boosts the performance of learners. It is easy since learners watch a video documentary in the lecture room. In an E-learning system, learners can interact anytime and from anywhere with various educational materials like messages, audio, pictures, video and more via the internet. The study concluded that e-learning is positively and significantly related to academic performance. The study recommended that both the lecturers and the learners are required to develop a personal interest in the usage of ICT. The use of ICT in schools needs to be made mandatory in tertiary institutions and the lecturers should be provided with good training on the effective use of ICT. There is a need to have a steady power supply to use ICT effectively. It is also recommended that tertiary institutions' management make a consorted initiative to give e-learning environments that will improve learner performances in tertiary institutions and facilitate their self-development initiatives. Keywords: E-Learning, academic performance, Undergraduate Students, Nankai University, China

Learning techniques that medical students use for long-term retention: A cross-sectional analysis

Background Reviews and meta-analysis conclude that distributed practice and practice testing are deemed the most effective learning techniques among undergraduate students, while rereading, underlining, and summarisation are the most known and less effective ones. However, this evidence is gathered from short-term retention studies prior to 2014, and there are other techniques with promising effect (metacognition, retrieval, concept mapping, setting learning goals) that were not included. Also, there is little real-settings evidence regarding what works best for long-term retention in medical students. Methods A cross-sectional analysis was carried out in a sample of 155 of second and third-year students of the Degree in Medicine at Universidad de Navarra in September 2020. The aim was to evaluate the impact the use of different learning techniques had on academic performance of undergraduate medical students, assessing up to three months of retention. A subgroup analysis was performed based on learning approach, spacing of the learning sessions, and academic results. Results Rereading, highlighting, and summarisation were the most known and used techniques among medical students, with detrimental effects on academic outcomes. Metacognition was the most effective technique, but up to 92% of the students didn’t know what it was. No single learning technique seemed to improve results in below-average students. Conclusions University curricula should promote the use of more efficient techniques, particularly metacognition, to help students become lifelong learners. More studies are needed to confirm these findings. Below-average students remain a challenging population.

The internship performance of undergraduate students: Are hard or soft skills more important?

Higher education provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary for professional development. These are applied when students make the transition from the academic world to the world of work and allow them to generate value for organizations. This study analyzes the impact that hard and soft skills have on the performance of undergraduate students in their internships. The methodology uses multiple regression techniques on data from 2010 to 2021 from a sample of 6632 students in 25 undergraduate programs at Icesi University in Colombia. The results confirm the importance of both soft and hard skills and show that soft skills explain students’ performance to a greater extent. These findings can assist universities, faculty and organizations in developing the skills necessary for students to improve their performance, build successful careers and generate value for organizations.

Cell phone use distracts young adults from academic work with limited benefit to self-regulatory behavior.

We aim to uncover theoretical mechanisms associated with potential negative (i.e., multitasking) and positive (i.e., self-regulation) aspects of cell phone use (CPU) for academic performance in young adults. We hypothesized that, according to the Switch-Load Theory, repeated CPU during academic activities (CPU_Multitasking) would relate negatively, whereas, according to Zimmerman’s Theory of Self-Regulated Learning, CPU for self-regulated learning behaviors (CPU_SRLBehavior) would relate positively to the academic performance of undergraduate students. 525 (75.4% female) undergraduate students from a large public university participated in this study during fall 2019 by completing validated quantitative surveys accessing their CPU and academic performance. Spearman’s rho was used to compute the correlations and hierarchical regression was used to analyze the variance. Spearman rank-order coefficient showed that CPU_Multitasking relates negatively, but CPU_SRLBehavior is unrelated to the college GPA of undergraduate students. Hierarchical regression showed that CPU_Multitasking was not a significant predictor of academic performance. Young adults who switch to their cell phones during class or study-related activities are more likely to have lower performance in exams as CPU_Multitasking costs time and efficiency (Switch Load Theory). Young adults who use their cell phones for self-regulated learning behavior are less likely to have an impact on their academic performance as CPU_SRLBehavior helps regulate habits but not learning processes. With the known theoretical mechanisms for CPU multitasking and SRL Behavior, this study provides a guiding document for educational computing system practitioners to explore more theory-driven empirical approaches in the field of CPU and academic success.

Comparison of academic performance of medical undergraduate students between routine class room teaching and online assisted teaching in biochemistry during COVID pandemic.

The new curriculum of competency based medical education (CBME) implemented for phase1 medical undergraduates could not go on to completion due to the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The educational institutions therefore resorted to online teaching modalities over conventional class room teachings. Hence this study aimed to compare the academic performance of students between routine classroom teaching and online assisted teaching with assignments.94 phase 1 MBBS students admitted in the year 2019-2020 was divided into low (<50%), medium (51%-70%) and high performers (71%-100%) based on the average marks in the initial formative assessments. Academic performance of students in three types of teaching modalities namely classroom teaching (CRT), classroom teaching with assignment (CRA), and online assisted teaching (OAT) were compared using ANOVA. Wilcoxon signed ranks test was used to find the difference in marks between CRT and CRA which was calculated as gain 1 and that between OAT and CRT is gain 2. Out of 94 students, 19 were low performers, 53 were medium performers and 22 were high performers when grouped at baseline. All these groups performed significantly well with OAT compared to CRT and CRA. The overall performance of girls was found to be significantly higher. There was no significant difference between Gain 1 and Gain 2. All group of students scored high in assessments following online teaching compared to conventional classroom teaching. The gain of online teaching did not outweigh the conventional teaching methods implying that face to face lectures is still an effective teaching modality.

Digital Resources Usage and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students in Nigeria: A Case Study

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.

The effect of Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) on the performance of undergraduate students and their perceptions towards it

Interactive Whiteboard (IWB)captured the interest of faculty members in view of facilitating the teaching process at universities through stimulating dialogue and discussion during the lecture in addition to attracting students’ attention and concentration throughout the lecture. For the purpose of identifying the contribution of the IWB in improving students' performance; a comparison between the scores in the IWB exams and retrieval exercises with their scores in the exams of three semesters taught through traditional lectures for a Vocational Education Technology course alongside with evaluating questionnaires for the students' perception. It was revealed that students' performance in the IWB exams was in general better than in conventional lectures. The two researches used the Empirical Researchmethod for a study sample of (64) students where the results concluded that students who used the IWB in their lectures excelled in comparison with the performance of the conventional lectures students; they also diplayed positive feedback about the use of IWB in teaching.&#x0D; Keywords: Interactive Whiteboard (IWB), Vocational Education Technology.

Social Media and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students in South-East Nigeria

Social Media and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students in South-East Nigeria

Advances and challenges in the detection of academic stress and anxiety in the classroom: A literature review and recommendations.

In recent years, stress and anxiety have been identified as two of the leading causes of academic underachievement and dropout. However, there is little work on the detection of stress and anxiety in academic settings and/or its impact on the performance of undergraduate students. Moreover, there is a gap in the literature in terms of identifying any computing, information technologies, or technological platforms that help educational institutions to identify students with mental health problems. This paper aims to systematically review the literature to identify the advances, limitations, challenges, and possible lines of research for detecting academic stress and anxiety in the classroom. Forty-four recent articles on the topic of detecting stress and anxiety in academic settings were analyzed. The results show that the main tools used for detecting anxiety and stress are psychological instruments such as self-questionnaires. The second most used method is acquiring and analyzing biological signals and biomarkers using commercial measurement instruments. Data analysis is mainly performed using descriptive statistical tools and pattern recognition techniques. Specifically, physiological signals are combined with classification algorithms. The results of this method for detecting anxiety and academic stress in students are encouraging. Using physiological signals reduces some of the limitations of psychological instruments, such as response time and self-report bias. Finally, the main challenge in the detection of academic anxiety and stress is to bring detection systems into the classroom. Doing so, requires the use of non-invasive sensors and wearable systems to reduce the intrinsic stress caused by instrumentation.

Predictors of undergraduate occupational therapy students’ academic performance during the Covid-19 pandemic: A hierarchical regression analysis

Background The rapid switch to online learning in response to the Covid-19 pandemic affected occupational therapy students’ education delivery. It is, therefore, important to investigate these impacts. Aims/objectives This study investigated the potential predictors of academic performance in undergraduate occupational therapy students after moving to online or blended learning post-Covid-19. Material and methods A total of 208 students from three Australian universities completed a demographic questionnaire and the Distance Education Learning Environment Scale (DELES). Hierarchical linear regression analyses were completed to identify significant students’ academic performance predictors. Results Hierarchical regression explained a cumulative total variance of 24.6% of students’ academic performance. The following independent variables were significant predictors: DELES student autonomy (p = 0.033), number of hours per semester week dedicated to indirect online study (p = 0.003), number of hours per semester week dedicated to indirect offline study time (p = 0.034), gender (p = 0.005) and English as a first language (p = 0.045). Conclusions The findings add to the knowledge base on the range of factors that have impacted occupational therapy students’ academic performance during the Covid-19 pandemic. Significance The outcomes will assist faculty in developing supportive and pedagogically sound learning modes across online, hybrid and traditional forms of instruction within occupational therapy curricula.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS

Introduction: The evaluation of Emotional Intelligence is an important factor in determining medical students' academic performance. As a result, the study was carried out to compare the relationship between Emotional Intelligence score and academic performance in undergraduate medical students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 346 undergraduate medical students and Schutte scale was used to assess their Emotional Intelligence through Google form during the period between July 2021 to January 2022. Academic achievement was assessed based on each student’s self-reported grade point average in the most recent examination. Results : Out of 346 study participants,3% had low Emotional Intelligence, 29% had moderate Emotional Intelligence, 68% had high Emotional Intelligence. A significant association was identified between Emotional Intelligence and Academic Performance, Grade, Gender, Career choice. No statistically significant association was observed between Emotional Intelligence and Year of study of participants. Conclusion: The participants' academic performance was strongly associated with their Emotional Intelligence scores. Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to comprehend and control emotions, to be empathetic, to be socially competent, and so on. These abilities increase overall communication skills, which improves achievement in medical school.

Role of E-Learning on academic performance of Undergraduate Students of Kebbi State University of Science and Technology Aliero, Nigeria

This study examined the role of e-learning on academic performance of undergraduate students of Kebbi State University of Science and Technology Aliero, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. Three research questions guided the study. The population of the study was 850 respondents, comprises 350 academic lecturers and 500 undergraduate students. The study adopted a simple random sampling technique to select 20% of the total population which was 170. The instrument for data collection was structured questionnaire. Data collected were used to determine the internal consistency and reliability of the instrument using Cronbach alpha techniques. An overall reliability coefficient of 0.89 was established. Mean and standard deviation were used for data analysis. The findings of the study revealed that e-learning plays a positive role on academic performance of undergraduate students in kebbi state university of science and technology Aliero. The findings of the study revealed challenges militating against the use of e-learning to enhance academic performance of undergraduate students in kebbi state university of science and technology Aliero, Nigeria. Based on the findings, the study recommend among others that kebbi state government should ensure a maximum standard set for the institution to get computer and internet facilities to enhance effective e-learning process in KSUSTA.

Analysis of the relation between academic performance and learning strategies of undergraduate students in Distance Education

This research aimed to identify the relations between the learning strategies adopted by distance education accounting students and their academic performances. In the context of the pandemic caused by Covid-19, several Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) needed to invest in technologies that facilitate the introduction and dissemination of the distance education. Despite the similarities in content between face-to-face and distance education, the learning process is different between the modalities, making it necessary to understand the strategies that help explain the performance of these students. To achieve the objective proposed by the research, a survey was carried out with 174 students of accounting undergraduate course in the distance education modality of a private HEI based in the city of São Paulo. The data used in this research was based in quantitative techniques, such as test of means, analysis of principal components and simple and multiple linear regressions. From the research results, it was possible to identify a positive correlation between the main strategies used by the students and the performance in the course, corroborating the literature consulted. Cognitive strategies, specially, proved to be more important for students in the research sample. The study results help to understand how accounting students use strategies that help their academic performance, which can be useful for course managers, students in the area, professors, and for the conduction of educational polices by the accounting association.

What Happened During COVID-19? Instructional Setting as a Predictor of Students’ Academic Achievement

Our goal in the current study was to identify the degree to which instructional setting (remote versus traditional) predicted students’ academic achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic. A matched sample of data from 194 undergraduate students who were continuously enrolled at a private university in the southeastern United States from the spring semester of 2020 through the spring semester of 2021 was selected for this study. Data from students enrolled remotely across 37 majors were matched by sex, enrollment status, and Spring 2020 GPA. Our findings showed that neither instructional setting, students’ sex, nor the number of hours they attempted were important predictors of students’ academic performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the academic performance of students enrolled remotely on average remained unchanged from Spring 2020 through Spring 2021. Incidentally, our results revealed that the preceding academic performance was the only important predictor of students' academic achievement during this period. This finding confirms former research on the role that previous performance plays in the academic performance of undergraduate students.

Analysis of the Problems of Training Bachelors in the Direction of “Technosphere Security” Taking Into Account the Cognitive Characteristics of New Generations of Students

The research aims to analyze possible ways to improve undergraduate student performance in current conditions. The use of new directions in the methods of training and conducting training in undergraduate agricultural higher education institutions in the “Technosphere safety” training program. When developing teaching methods and technologies, teachers should consider changes in the cognitive abilities of the Generation Z students, which differ significantly from previous generations in terms of attention, information perception, and communication abilities. The author argues a need for the digital transformation of education in the wake of the trend towards the digital transformation of the economy and agriculture. This is primarily an opportunity to activate the combination of the group educational process in the classroom using the capabilities of current computer technologies with the individualization (personification) of education when each student gets the opportunity for independent creative work with remote control and correction by the teacher.

Undergraduate Student Performance in a Structural Analysis Course: Continuous Assessment before and after the COVID-19 Outbreak

The COVID-19 pandemic situation in 2020 forced educational institutions worldwide to fully adopt online learning for both teaching and assessment. However, this change may lead to less satisfactory learning outcomes, if the online technologies used have not been adequately applied. This study compares student engagement and performance through online continuous assessment in a one-semester structural analysis course for undergraduate architecture students before and after the pandemic outbreak. Online continuous assessment assignments had already been deployed and validated in the course evaluation system before the outbreak, and they were further leveraged during the online course. These assignments consisted of three weekly Moodle questionnaires throughout each of the fifteen course weeks, which determined the continuous assessment score. More than 200 students participated in each period. The results showed that shifting to online education affected continuous assessment outcomes very little in terms of participation rates and student performance. The possible underlying causes for the slight differences found between the two academic years are also discussed. The results highlight the robustness of the continuous assessment method used and emphasize the importance of having developed and validated online learning procedures to broach learning activities if contingency situations are required.

Academic interest determines the academic performance of undergraduate accounting students: Multinomial logit evidence

Academic interest determines the academic performance of undergraduate accounting students: Multinomial logit evidence

Examination performance of dentistry students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective The global COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in remote teaching and online assessment in higher education. The examination performance of undergraduate students of dentistry was evaluated to assess any possible association between the altered learning environment and learners’ performance. Materials and methods Using administrative data from the University of Helsinki, the examination performance during the years 2018 and 2019 was compared with that of 2020. Results In 16 out of 22 courses (73%) taught remotely during the pandemic, a statistically significant difference (p < .05) between the awarded grades was observed, as compared to the two previous years. Annual variation in examination grades was common even before the onset of remote teaching, but more so after it. The grade variation during the pandemic was nearly as prevalent towards falling grades (26%) as towards rising grades (36%), implying a multifactorial cause possibly unrelated to remote teaching. Conclusions Our results imply that online teaching did not systematically improve or worsen the examination performance of undergraduate students of dentistry. Our findings have important policy implications for educational practices in the future. The observed annual grade variation might reflect the effectiveness of remote teaching, changes in students’ performance, or non-systematic grading.

Predictive Ability of Noncognitive Factors on Academic Performance of Undergraduate Psychology Students

The ability to predict student performance creates opportunities to improve educational outcomes. Exploring the possibilities of measuring variables that could significantly influence the academic performance is fundamental to the realization of technological and scientific development, political, and socio-economic advancement, and success in life. This descriptive-relational study anchored on the Theory of Educational Productivity by Herbert Walberg utilized Multiple Regression Analyses to investigate the predictive ability of Adversity Quotient, Emotional Intelligence, and Personality on Academic Performance of Psychology students in a state college. Using convenience and quota sampling procedures, one hundred students (50 males and 50 females) were selected to participate in the study. Mean and standard deviation were used for descriptive analysis, Mann Whitney U test for comparative analysis, and Spearman Rho Correlation for relational analysis. Results revealed that collectively, the levels of Adversity Quotient, Emotional Intelligence, and Personality of the participants were “Average”, while their Academic Performance was “Superior”. No significant differences were noted among all the study variables regardless of their demographic characteristic. Emotional stability yielded a positive relationship with the academic performance of participants and predicted 51.8% of the increase in their academic performance. Moreover, empirical evidence suggests mentorship is effective in fostering the student's emotional stability.

A comparison of the academic performance of graduate entry and undergraduate entry pharmacy students at the course exit level

IntroductionGraduate entry (GE) pharmacy students are trained in a shorter timeframe than undergraduate entry (UE) students. This study compares the academic performance of GE and UE pharmacy students at the course exit point. MethodsA retrospective analysis of final exam grades in written and objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) was performed between GE and UE students from three graduating cohorts. Final written examination contained clinical case study questions, whereas OSCE involved role play with simulated patients or doctors. Statistical analyses were performed by t-test and one-way analysis of variance at .05 significance level and Pearson's correlation coefficient. ResultsNo significant difference in academic performance was seen between GE and UE groups at course exit (P > .05). There was a trend for GE students performing marginally better in OSCE than UE students. Females showed better performances in verbal communication than males. GE males showed significantly lower empathy scores than all other groups. No significant difference was seen in problem-solving scores amongst all groups. Both UE and GE groups scored significantly better in written examinations compared with OSCE. ConclusionsGraduate entry pharmacy students from accelerated learning pathway and UE students performed similarly at the course exit point, providing empirical support for non-traditional graduate entry pathway as a viable option.