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Predictors of academic performance in the discipline‐specific bioscience paper: a retrospective qualitative study
Author(s) -
Khareedi R.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
european journal of dental education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.583
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1600-0579
pISSN - 1396-5883
DOI - 10.1111/eje.12234
Subject(s) - medical education , retrospective cohort study , psychology , qualitative research , medicine , engineering ethics , sociology , engineering , social science
The cohort of students enrolled in the discipline‐specific bioscience paper reflects a structural diversity in that it includes students of multiple ethnicities, varied age groups, differing scholastic and life experiences. These divergent identities of students are known to influence academic performance. The purpose of this retrospective quantitative study was to determine the ability of a set of variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, level of prior education, the place from which prior education was obtained, work experience and prior academic achievement to predict academic performance in the discipline‐specific bioscience paper. Method The sample for this study was a purposive sample of all oral health students who had enrolled in the paper at the Auckland University of Technology from 2011 to 2014. The desensitised empirical data of 116 students from the University's database were subject to multivariable regression analysis. Pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated. Results Prior academic achievement was a statistically significant predictor variable ( P < 0.001) for the academic performance in the discipline‐specific bioscience paper and was also positively correlated ( r = 0.641, P < 0.001) to the grades in the discipline‐specific bioscience paper. Conclusion Prior academic achievement was the only variable that was demonstrated to be correlated to and predictive of the academic performance in the discipline‐specific bioscience paper.