ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE;

Objectives: To explore the factors affecting academic performance ofundergraduate MBBS students in Central Park Medical College Lahore. Background: Inmedical education, academic achievement tends to be an important aspect of professionaldevelopment later in the life of medical graduates. In Pakistan, pre-admission grades are oneof the most important criteria for admission in medical colleges. Several other factors are alsobelieved to play an important role to predict performance of undergraduate students in medicalcolleges. A detailed study of these factors can help to improve the performance of studentsin medical colleges. Study Design: Cross-sectional analytical study. Setting: Central ParkMedical College, Lahore. Materials and methods:Two MBBS batches (n=200) of Central ParkMedical College. Student data regarding gender, parent occupation, being a boarder or dayscholar, marks scored in F.sc and MCAT along with the score obtained in all professionalexaminations was collected. The data was analyzed using SPSS 23.0. Results: Thisstudy revealed that there was a positive correlation between preadmission grades of studentsand their academic performance throughout the five year period of medical college. Therewas no significant difference (p-value >0.05) between the academic performances ofstudents from parents of medical background as compared to those from parents withoutany medical background. The performances of students living in hostels were almost same astheir counterparts who were day scholars (p-value>0.05). The overall performance of studentswas better in the final years of medical colleges as compared to the initial years with femalesperforming better than males. Conclusion: The findings of this study support the fact that preadmission grades may prove to be a predictor of performance later in professional college life.Factors like parent occupation and place of accommodation have little role in predicting theacademic achievement of medical students. Learning though interactive manner tend to helpin achieving better grades as compared to students who learn through less interactive/didacticlecture technique.