Factors Affecting Students' Performance. 16 July 2006

Transcription

1 Factors Affectng Students' Performance Nasr Harb 1 * Department of Economcs College of Busness & Economcs Unted Arab Emrates Unversty P.O. Box Al-An, UAE Tel.: Fax: E-mal: nasr.harb@uaeu.ac.ae Ahmed El-Shaaraw* Department of Economcs College of Busness & Economcs Unted Arab Emrates Unversty P.O. Box Al-An, UAE Tel.: Fax: E-mal: ashaaraw@uaeu.ac.ae 16 July Correspondng author * The authors would lke to express ther sncere apprecaton to the Research Affars at the Unted Arab Emrates Unversty for the fnancal support for ths project under fund grant # /04. The authors would also lke to express ther grattude to all faculty members at the College of Busness and Economcs at the Unted Arab Emrates Unversty and to the followng students for helpng wth data collecton and entry: Mohammad Abou Halga, Mahmoud Adde, Jmaleh Ahmed, Duaa Shakh Al, Dala Al-Iran, Hba Al-Khadra, Nna Greeshkeeva, Lams Hafez, Bana Madvenova, Dhuha Musleh, Tahseen Rajoub, and Khabab Sssanga.

2 Factors Affectng Students' Performance Determnants of students' performance have been the subject of ongong debate among educators, academcs, and polcy makers. There have been many studes that sought to examne ths ssue and ther fndngs pont out to hard work, prevous schoolng, parents educaton, famly ncome and self motvaton as factors that have a sgnfcant effect on the students GPA. Most of those studes have focused on students' performance n the U.S. and Europe. However, snce cultural dfferences may play a role n shapng the factors that affect students' performance, t s very mportant to examne those relevant factors to the UAE socety. The am of ths study s to nvestgate the soco-economc characterstcs of students of the College of Busness and Economcs-UAEU n relaton to these students' performance and takng nto account varables pertanng to the UAE Socety. Usng a sample of 864 CBE student and regresson analyss, our results show that the most mportant factor that affects student's performance s the student's competence n Englsh. Besdes competence n Englsh, students who partcpate n class dscusson and those on leave outperform other students. The factors that negatvely affect student's performance the most are mssng too many lectures and lvng n crowded household. The results also show that non-natonal students outperform natonal students and female students outperform ther male counterpart. 1. Introducton Determnants of students' performance have been the subject of ongong debate among educators, academcs, and polcy makers. There have been many studes that sought to examne ths ssue and the fndngs of these studes pont out to hard work and dscplne, prevous schoolng, parents educaton, famly ncome and self motvaton as factors that can explan dfferences n students' grades. For example, Segfred and Fels (1979) concluded that the student s apttude s the most mportant determnant of hs/her learnng. In a study of hgh school students who are n an economcs class and want to take another economcs course, Beron (1990) found that there s a lnk between the perceved usefulness of an addtonal course n economcs and the performance of the students n a current economcs course. Gender wse, Wllams et al (1992) found no evdence to support the hypothess that sgnfcant and consstent gender 2

3 dfferences exst n college students' performance on economc exams. Romer (1993) found that class attendance s reflected sgnfcantly on the students GPA. Anderson and Benjamn (1994) found that the most mportant factors that affect students' performance n unversty ntroductory economcs course were the overall achevement level and takng a course n calculus. Wth regard to gender, they found that male students outperform ther female counterpart. Kennedy and Tay (1994) concluded n ther survey artcle that the research on the factors affectng students performance n economcs ponts out to student s apttude as the most mportant determnant of learnng. Study effort, age of student, and a good match between student s learnng style and nstructor s teachng style all have postve effect on student's performance. Cohn et al (1995) found that memory and note-takng affect learnng n the ntroductory courses n economcs. Devadoss and Foltz (1996) studed the effects of prevous GPA, class attendance, and fnancal status on the performance of students of some agrculture economcs related courses. They concluded that prevous GPA and motvaton affect postvely the current GPA. They also found that students who support themselves fnancally are lkely to have better performance. Zmmer and Fuller (1996) n ther survey artcle of the factors affectng students' performance n statstcs found that statstcs anxety and atttude, and computer experence are lnked to students' performance n statstcs courses. Ells et al (1998) n ther study on the factors affectng student performance n prncples of economcs, found that the lkelhood of a student makng a grade of A or B sgnfcantly decreases as the number of absences ncreases; when the student s a member of fraternty or sororty; and as the number of credt hours carred by the student durng the semester ncreases. On the other hand, the chance of a student makng an A or B n the course sgnfcantly ncreases wth havng taken a calculus course; a hgher GPA; and hgher SAT scores. Lane and Porch (2002) studed the factors affectng students' 3

4 performance on an ntroductory undergraduate fnancal accountng course and found that age and students atttude toward accountng have sgnfcant effect on students' performance. Karemera (2003) found that students' performance s sgnfcantly correlated wth satsfacton wth academc envronment and servce receved. He also found that the exstence of professonal development programs and nternshp opportuntes are assocated wth better academc performance. Wth regard to background varables, he found a postve effect of hgh school performance and school achevement whle there was no statstcal evdence of sgnfcant assocaton between famly ncome level and academc performance. As t can be seen from the above lterature revew, the prevous studes have focused on students' performance n the U.S. and Europe. However, snce there are cultural dfferences between western socetes and tradtonal mddle eastern socetes, Unted Arab Emrates (UAE) n our case, and snce such dfferences may play a role n shapng the factors that affect ths performance, t s very mportant to examne those relevant factors to UAE socety and n partcular to the UAE Unversty (UAEU) students' populaton. The am of ths research s to examne determnants of students' performance n the College of Busness & Economcs-UAEU takng nto account varables pertanng to the UAE Socety. Besdes the conventonal factors, ths study wll nvestgate the effect of gender on students' performance especally that UAEU has dfferent campuses for male and female students. Another factor to be nvestgated s whether lvng on campus has any role n determnng students' performance. Ths factor nteracts wth gender snce there exst very restrct rules on the female campus especally wth regard to ther movement n and out of the campus. Another factor that may affect students' performance s famly sze whch dffers sgnfcantly among dfferent ethnc and economc sub-groups. On the other hand, snce the language of nstructon at 4

5 the CBE s Englsh, students' competence n Englsh s ncluded n our lst of varables affectng students' performance. The mportance of ths study s two folded: 1. It focuses on factors that affect students' performance n the UAEU. 2. It should help polcy makers n the UAE n general and n the UAEU n partcular to desgn and mplement polces to mprove students' performance on one hand and mprove the effcency of educaton on the other hand. The remanng of ths paper s organzed as follows: secton (2) presents a general descrpton of the populaton of the College of Busness and Economcs n UAEU and the methodology used n conductng ths research. In secton (3) we dscuss the regresson results, and we conclude n secton (4). 2. Methodology: UAE s composed of seven emrates: Abu-Dhab, Duba, Sharjah, Ajman, Um Quwayn, Fujarah and Ras Al Khaymah. UAEU s located n Al-An cty n Abu Dhab emrate. The College of Busness and Economcs (CBE) at UAEU offers seven majors: Accountng, Economcs, Fnance, Management, Management Informaton System, Marketng, and Statstcs. In late February 2004, students' populaton at CBE conssted of 2,207 students. Among those, a majorty of 1395 were female students (63.2%). The hgher female presence n the students' populaton can be explaned by the fact that many UAE male hgh school (HS) graduates prefer to jon the lucratve publc servce, especally the army and the polce, nstead of attendng college. Amongst those who decde to go to college, some choose to go to European or U.S. colleges and unverstes. 5

6 Due to tradton and culture, there are two separate campuses; one for female and one for male students. We wll try to examne the effects of socal factors on each group. Moreover, the non-natonal students' populaton represents about 20% of the overall student's populaton. Most of these non-natonal students are Arabs who lve wth ther famles as resdents n the UAE. Besdes the Arab students, there are some non-arabs who are mostly from some Afrcan countres and some republcs of the former Sovet Unon. Ths study was carred usng a sample of students from the CBE. A questonnare was prepared and dstrbuted to a representatve sample of students. Data was collected n an anonymous way. The questonnare ncluded three sets of questons: the frst set addressed ndvdual student background nformaton such as HS background, parent's educaton, workng experence, and studyng hours. The second set covered the percepton of the students to the unversty envronment such as the atttude towards the unversty and students' percepton towards ther professor. The thrd set of questons addressed the socoeconomc characterstcs of the student's famly studyng envronment, such as how affluent or tradtonal the famly s as we wll dscuss below. 6

7 3. Analyss and Results: 3.1 Sample Overvew: Table (1) represents some descrptve statstcs of our sample and t can be notced from the table that non-natonal students have hgher GPA, attend prvate schools more frequently, a larger proporton of them are wth hgh school dploma n scence, they have a hgher average n Englsh language n hgh school and n the Unversty General Requrement Unt (UGRU), they are more lkely to pass the Englsh challenge exam at UGRU, ther parents are more educated, they are more apprecatve of the unversty and ther professors, and partcpate more n class dscussons. However, they mss more classes than ther natonal counterparts. Comparng male and female students, t can be seen from the table that female students have hgher GPA, have hgher score n Englsh, more lkely to lve wth ther famly or n the dorm, partcpate more n class (except for non-natonal females), have hgher percentage of marrages, and study more. For male students and compared to ther female counterpart, hgher percentage of them attend prvate schools, they are more lkely to have hgh school dploma n scence, more lkely to pass UGRU challenge Englsh test, more lkely to be employed, ther parents are better educated, have better atttude towards the unversty, have better atttude towards ther professors (except for non-natonal), mss more classes (except for non-natonal males), lve n more crowded households, more lkely to have drver lcense, spend more tme on ther socal responsbltes, and go to the move and shoppng malls wth ther frends more frequently. 7

8 Surveyed Factors Table 1: Students Characterstcs by Gender and Natonalty* ALL FEMALE MALE NAT NON- BOTH NAT NON- BOTH NAT NON- BOTH NAT NAT NAT (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) GPA # of Students wth prvate schoolng # of Students wth Scence major n HS 38 (6%) 380 (56%) 57 (30%) 142 (76%) 95 (11%) 524 (61%) 15 (3%) 254 (55%) 26 (30%) 66 (75%) 41 (7%) 322 (59%) 23 (11%) 126 (59%) 31 (31%) 76 (76%) Grade n Englsh n HS Grade n Englsh n UGRU Passed Challenge Exam Employed Students Students lvng wth ther famly Students lvng on campus 54 (17%) 202 (64%) (7%) 71 (11%) 338 (50%) 278 (41%) 49 (26%) 13 (7%) 79 (42%) 100 (53%) 97 (11%) 84 (10%) 419 (48%) 379 (44%) 21 (5%) 13 (3%) 236 (51%) 207 (45%) 21 (24%) 5 (6%) 37 (42%) 50 (57%) 42 (8%) 18 (3%) 274 (50%) 258 (47%) 27 (13%) 58 (27%) 102 (48%) 71 (33%) 28 (28%) 8 (8%) 42 (42%) 50 (50%) Father educaton Mother educaton Students wth UAEU postve atttude Atttude towards professors Partcpaton n class dscusson Number of mssed lectures/course Crowdng of House Hold 267 (40%) 99 (53%) 368 (43%) 169 (37%) 41 (47%) 211 (38%) 98 (46%) 58 (58%) 55 (18%) 66 (21%) 145 (46%) 121 (38%) 157 (50%) (53%) 116 (62%) 473 (55%) 225 (49%) 55 (62%) 282 (51%) 129 (61%) 61 (61%) 191 (61%) Marred students 11% 3% 9% 11% 4% 10% 10% 1% 7% Studyng hrs /weekday Studyng hrs /weekend Students wth drvng lcense Hours for famly responsbltes (33.7%) 80 (42.6%) 307 (35.5%) 32 (7%) 26 (29.5%) 58 (10.5%) 195 (91.5%) 54 (54%) 249 (79.3%) Number of mads Students go to moves wth frends 23% 59% 31% 6% 49% 13% 60% 68% 62% Students go to shoppng malls wth frends 23% 62% 31% 10% 53% 17% 51% 69% 56% *The percentage numbers shown s the percentage of students where the factor apples amongst the category of students shown n the top of the column. 8

9 3.2 Regresson Results: In order to conduct our econometrc evaluaton of the effect of the above dscussed factors on the students performance, we used OLS to estmate the followng model: GPA GradeUGRU (1 Challenge ) Challenge Weekends Scence 0 1 Prvate Leave JOB *(1 Leave ) ( Move gender) Partcpaton Mssclass Atttude Credts Crowdng MadsH NonUAE Gender Re sponsblty The varables n the above model nclude most of the varables dscussed n the prevous secton. Some varables were not ncluded because they are expected to be strongly correlated wth others. For nstance, grade n Englsh n HS s expected to be hghly correlated wth the grade n Englsh n UGRU, also students who regularly go to shoppng malls are expected to go frequently to move theatre. The frst varable represents grade n Englsh at UGRU for those students who dd not pass UGRU challenge Englsh test whle the second varable represents students who passed the challenge test and dd not have to take Englsh at UGRU, therefore, both varable reflect competence n Englsh for all students n the sample. We chose to nclude studyng hours durng the weekend and not studyng hours n weekdays because the data for the later was unrelable for many students. It s expected that β 1, β 2, and β 3 have postve sgns. Snce the study at the CBE requres quanttatve analytcal sklls, t s expected that students wth scentfc background n hgh school do better than those wth lterature background. It s expected also that prvate schools provde better qualty educaton to ther students compared to publc schools; therefore, we expect β 4 and β 5 to be postve. Class attendance and class partcpaton are expected to have postve effect on student's grade; β 6 s expected to be postve whle β 7, whch measures how 9

10 many lectures are mssed per course and s expected to be negatve. We expect also that a postve atttude towards the unversty and professors has a postve mpact on students performance (β 8 >0). Indeed, prevous lterature has shown a postve lnk between atttude and performance (Zmmer and Fuller, 1996 and, Lane and Porch, 2002). The UAEU students have to enroll n some Englsh, Arabc, math, and IT classes at UGRU before they enroll n ther respectve colleges and usually ther performance n these classes s hgher than ther performance n the regular classes. Therefore, t s expected that as the student's takes on more credt hours, hs/her overall GPA wll be negatvely affected; β 9 s negatve. The only relable data that may be used as proxy for the student's economc background s CROWDING (the rato of the number of people who lve n the student's household dvded by number of rooms n her house). Therefore, β 10 s expected to be negatve because a crowded home does not provde a quet studyng envronment. The effect of Mads/Household on the student performance s ambguous. Snce ths varable may be a proxy for how affluent the famly s and t s not clear whether ths wll have postve or negatve effect on student's performance, therefore β 11 may be postve or negatve. The coeffcents on the natonalty and on gender, β 12 and β 13, are expected to be postve n favor of non natonal students and female students as was observed n the prevous secton. β 14 s expected to be postve because more responsblty means less tme to study. In relaton to job, two varables are ncluded: leave and Job *(1-leave ). Both varables are taken nto account only n the case of male natonal students snce they are the only group of students who may have jobs and work at the same tme or have leave from ther jobs. Those students are usually mature enough and value studyng tme more, moreover, ther performance s montored by ther employers and are subject to penaltes f they do not perform well n school. Therefore β 15 s expected to be postve. Students who have jobs are also expected to be 0

11 mature but to have less studyng tme; therefore the sgn of β 16 s ambguous. For female students, gong to move theatre wth ther frends s ndcator of how lberal a famly s wthn the UAE context and we expect that t has postve effect on students' performance. We ran the regresson for all the students n the sample, then we splt them nto dfferent subgroups: natonals, non-natonals, males, females, male natonals, male non natonals, female natonals, female non natonals, junors (students wth less than 66 credts hours), and senors students (wth more than 66 credt hours). Table (2) represents the regressons results where t can be seen that the most mportant factor that postvely affect student's performance regardless of gender or natonalty s the student's competence n Englsh measured n passng the UGRU challenge test or hs/her grade n Englsh at UGRU. The other background schoolng factors such as studyng hours durng the weekend, scentfc background, and prvate schoolng do not have that persstent and clear sgnfcant effect on students' grade n most of the subgroups. Class partcpaton also has postve and sgnfcant effect on students' grades especally for female students. Ths s an ndcaton that female students who partcpate n class dscusson and are, therefore, not passve are lkely to have better performance. Havng postve atttudes towards the unversty has postve effect on overall students' performance and for senor students. The results also show that beng on leave has postve effect on student's grade as expected. There are some varables that have negatve effect on student's grades such as mssng too many classes whch have negatve and sgnfcant effect overall and for most subgroups. The crowdng varable has negatve and sgnfcant effect for the whole sample and for the natonal and senor students only. Fnally, the results show that non-natonal students and female students outperform ther counterparts. 1

12 Table 2: Regresson Results For Students' Performance By Natonalty and Gender [Dependent varable s student' GPA] Varables All Naton als Non natonals Male Females Natonals Males Natonal Females Non- Natonal Males Non - Natonal Females <= 66 Cr. Hrs. > 66 Cr. Hrs Regresson (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) Grade UGRU 0.03* (0.003) 0.02* (0.004) 0.04* (0.01) 0.02* (0.003) 0.03* (0.005) Challenge 2.64* (0.27) 2.52* (0.29) 3.88* (0.49) 2.32* (0.28) 3.30* (0.47) 1.83* (0.30) 3.20* (0.52) 3.89* (0.65) 3.21* (1.38) 2.70* (0.37) 2.67* (0.45) Weekends * ** (0.05) 0.10* (0.04) Scence * (0.15) 0.30 (0.21) ** Prvate ** (0.11) (0.13) 0.41* (0.13) 0.03 (0.18) (0.14) 0.07 (0.19) 0.01 (0.11) (0.13) Class partcpaton 0.11** (0.05) ** 0.01* (0.07) 0.19* 0.07 (0.12) 0.07* (0.17) 0.16** 0.04 Mssng lectures -0.06* -0.04** * * (0.04) -0.16* * Atttude 0.12* (0.05) (0.14) 0.24 (0.22) 0.21* 0.09 Credts * * * * * * ** (0.001) (0.001) (0.002) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.002) (0.002) Crowdng -0.05** -0.06** (0.18) -0.08* 0.08 (0.07) Mads / household (0.26) (0.14) 0.07 (0.13) (0.14) 0.05 (0.13) (0.42) -1.62** (0.82) (0.20) 0.13 (0.13) NonUAEU 0.22* 0.14** 0.39* 0.18** 0.23* (0.07) (0.07) (0.12) (0.11) Gender 0.14* * 0.21* (0.07) (0.07) Responsblty (0.04) (0.004) (0.007) (0.003) (0.01) (0.003) (0.01) (0.01) (0.005) (0.005) Leave 0.25* 0.19** 0.20* 0.20* 0.37* (0.11) (0.16) (0.15) Job*(1-Leave) (0.11) (0.14) (0.15) (0.12) Move ** (0.30) (0.12) 0.10 (0.13) (0.19) (0.14) (0.12) Adjusted R * (0.003) 0.04* (0.005) 0.04* (0.01) 0.03* (0.01) 0.03* (0.004) observatons J-B normalty test, p-value Standard error between parentheses. *(**) Sgnfcant at 0.05 level. 0.03* (0.005) 2

13 4. Concluson: Ths paper examned the factors that affect students' performance at the College of Busness and Economcs-UAE Unversty. The results show that the most mportant factor wth postve effect on students' performance s student's competence n Englsh and class partcpaton. The results also show that the most mportant factors that have negatve effect on students' performance are mssng too many classes and credt hours acheved (progresson of the students n hs/her study plan. Fnally, our analyss shows that non-natonal students outperform natonal students and female students outperform male students. References: Anderson, G., and D. Benjamn The determnants of success n unversty ntroductory economcs courses. Journal of Economc Educaton 25(2): Beron, K Jont determnaton of current classroom performance and addtonal economcs classes: A Bnary/contnuous model. Journal of Economc Educaton 21(3): Cohn, E., S. Cohn, and J. Bradley Notetakng, workng memory, and learnng n prncples of economcs. Journal of Economc Educaton 26(4): Devadoss, S., and J. Foltz Evaluaton of factors nfluencng students attendance and performance. Amercan Journal of Agrcultural Economcs August: Ells, L., G. Durden, and P. Gaynor. Evdence on the factors that nfluence the probablty of A good performance n the prncples of economcs course. Unversty of West Georga, Karemera, D The Effects of academc envronment and background characterstcs on students' satsfacton and performance: The Case of South Carolna State Unversty's School of Busness. College Student Journal, 37(2): Kennedy, P., and Tay, R Students' performance n economcs: Does the norm hold across cultural and nsttutonal settngs? Journal of Economc Educaton 25(4): Lane, A., and M. Porch Computer Aded Learnng (CAL) and ts mpact on the 3

14 performance of non-specalst accountng undergraduates. Accountng Educaton 11(3): Romer, D Do Students go to class? Should they? Journal of Economc Perspectves 7(3): Segfred, J., and R. Fels Research on teachng college economcs: A Survey. Journal of Economc Lterature: 17(3): Wllams, M., L. Waldauer, C. Duggal, and G. Vjaya Gender dfferences n economc knowledge: An extenson of the analyss. Journal of Economc Educaton 23(3): Zmmer, J., and D. Fuller Factors affectng undergraduate performance n statstcs: A Revew of Lterature. Paper presented at the Annual Meetng of the Md-South Educatonal Research Assocaton (Tuscaloosa, AL, November 1996). The ERIC Database ED

15 Appendx The followng s a lst of the varables used n our survey: CAMPUS = 1 f the student lves on campus, 0 otherwse. CHALLENGE = 1 f the student has successfully passed the Englsh challenge exam at UGRU, 0 otherwse. CREDITS = total number of credt hours that the students had cumulated when she / he flled the questonnare. CROWDING = the rato of the number of people who lve n the student's household dvded by number of rooms n her house. In our sample, ts values vary n the range [0.14, 12.57]. DRIVING = 1 f the student holds a drvng lcense, 0 otherwse. EDUF = the educaton level of the father, EDUF = 0 f he has no formal educaton, = 1 f he has less than hgh school dploma, =2 f he has hgh school dploma, =3 f he has junor college, = 4 f he has college degree, and =5 f she has more than college degree (5). EDUM = the educaton level of the mother, EDUM = 0 f she has no formal educaton, = 1 f she has less than hgh school dploma, =2 f she has hgh school dploma, =3 f she has junor college, = 4 f she has college degree, and =5 f she has more than college degree (5) FAMILY = 1 f the student lves wth hs famly, 0 otherwse. GPA = the Grade Pont Average. In our sample ts values s n the nterval [1.21, 4.0]. GRA_HS = the student's grade n Englsh language at Hgh School. In our sample, ts values vary n the range [50, 99]. GRA_UG = the student's grade n Englsh at UGRU. In our sample, ts values vary n the range [62, 95]. JOB = 1 f the student holds a job, 0 otherwse. LITERATURE = 1 f the student holds a lterature dploma n Hgh School, = 0 otherwse. 5

16 MAIDS = the number of mads n the student's house. In our sample, ts values vary n the range [0, 20]. MARRIED = 1 f the student s marred, = 0 otherwse. MISSING = number of mssed lectures per course.. In our sample, ts values vary n the range [0, 6.5] MOVIES =1 f the student go to moves wth frends, = 0 otherwse. NEGATIVE = 1 f the students has a negatve feelngs towards UAEU, 0 otherwse. PARTICIP =1 f the student partcpates n class dscussons, = 0 otherwse. POSITIVE = 1 f the students has a postve feelngs towards UAEU, 0 otherwse. PRIVATE =1 f the students had ever attended a prvate school, = 0 otherwse. PROF = how the student perceves and apprecates hs professors at the UAEU = 0 f very poor, = 1 f poor, = 2 f good, = 3 f very good, = 4 f excellent. RESP = the number of hours the student spend every week on famly responsbltes. In our sample, ts values vary n the range [0, 50] SCIENCE = 1 f the student holds a scentfc dploma n Hgh School, = 0 otherwse. SHOPPING =1 f the student go to shoppng malls wth frends, = 0 otherwse. UAEUF = 1 f the students have postve feelngs towards UAE Unversty, = 0 otherwse. UGRU = the Unversty General Requrement Unt where the students prepare ther freshman courses. WEEKDAYS = the average number of hours that the students put on homework every weekday. In our sample, ts values vary n the range [0, 15] WEEKENDS = the average number of hours that the students put on homework every week end. In our sample, ts values vary n the range [0, 12] 6