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At least 217 records · Page 12Linked to original sources
PubMed2003

Noncognitive predictors of academic performance. Going beyond the traditional measures.

The purpose of this study was to examine comparatively the use of an atypical, noncognitive predictor of academic achievement, the Problem Solving Inventory (PSI), with the traditional cognitive measures of American College Testing (ACT) score and grade point average (CPA). A review of relevant literature on noncognitive variables as predictors of academic success is provided, followed by a general overview of the PSI and pertinent literature. In this study, the PSI was administered to 28 dental hygiene students, and a series of models were tested. The first model examined the relationship between the traditional cognitive predictors of academic success (ACT score and entering GPA) on academic outcomes (National Board Dental Hygiene Examination score and exit CPA). A second model examined the influence of the PSI composite score when added to the cognitive predictors. A third model examined the addition of the three PSI factor scores to the cognitive predictors. The addition of PSI scores in the second and third models increased the predictive capacity of the respective model. Bivariate correlations indicated a significant inverse relationship (p < 0.05) between the admissions variables of ACT score and entering OPA with PSI composite and factor scores. The PSI personal control factor score showed a significant (p < 0.05) inverse relationship with the outcome measures. Preliminary findings indicate that the PSI adds slightly to the predictive capacity of ACT score and entering GPA, although its usefulness in augmenting these traditional measures used in the student selection process requires further investigation. The PSI factor score of personal control may provide insight into a student's coping skills, potentially having implications on academic achievement.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2005

A pilot study of the effect of Direct Instruction programming on the academic performance of students with intractable epilepsy.

Fifty-five students with intractable epilepsy and learning difficulties, aged 6.5 to 14.1 years with a mean IQ of 71.25 (SD=13.56), attended a hospital-based classroom of no more than eight students where they received Direct Instruction programming for 3 to 4.5 days a week, typically for up to 16 weeks. Pretest-posttest academic gains were evaluated in comparison to normative test performance. At pretest the students were achieving below test means in reading and mathematics, particularly in calculation. Direct Instruction was associated with significant improvement in all academic areas except word identification in reading. IQ level was related to certain academic gains, but gains were not associated with seizure variables or the number of days students spent in the program. Despite severe learning difficulties, students with intractable epilepsy can make academic gains when taught by highly structured teaching methods such as Direct Instruction.

Achievement↗
PubMed2004

Academic stress, immunological reaction, and academic performance among students of nursing and physiotherapy.

The associations among health status, health behavior, and changes in human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) specific salivary antibodies during academic stress were investigated in relation to academic achievement among nursing and physiotherapy students. Fifty-four first year students donated saliva samples and completed a pencil and paper questionnaire before (t1), during two term examinations (t2 and t3), and after grades were posted (t4). An increase in the level of specific salivary HCMV IgG and IgA antibodies from t1 to t2, and a decrease from t2 to t4 were related to academic success. Health status and health behavior remained fairly stable during the stress period. The results are congruent with the inverted U-shape model of stress and learning suggested by Yerkes & Dodson (1908).

Achievement↗
PubMed2001

Alcohol consumption and academic performance in a population of Spanish high school students.

OBJECTIVE: The present study was designed to identify patterns of alcohol consumption among Spanish high school students and describe the relationship between alcohol intake and school performance. METHOD: The sample population consisted of students, aged 14 to 19 years, who were attending high school during the academic year 1994-95 in the city of Granada in southern Spain. We studied 1,602 (861 female) students (alpha error - 0.05, sampling error = 5%), using a self-administered questionnaire that contained items about individual and family demographics, quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption, and school performance. Total alcohol consumption was recorded as grams (g) of alcohol per week and per day for three categories of alcoholic drinks: wine, beer and distilled spirits. RESULTS: The percentage of nondrinkers was 21.05% for male adolescents and 28.56% for female adolescents. The mean amount of alcohol consumed per week was larger in male than in female students (F= 18.36, l/l,594 df, p < .001) and distilled spirits accounted for the largest proportion of alcohol consumed. No significant differences in drinking patterns were found between students at public and private schools. The risk of academic failure increased considerably when more than 150 g of alcohol were consumed per week (OR: 2.91; 95% CI: 1.94-4.43). CONCLUSIONS: Although we cannot draw any conclusions about the causes of the association between academic failure and teenage drinking, our results do show that the risk of failing increases together with alcohol intake. However, it should be noted that academic achievement is also influenced by many factors other than alcohol consumption.

Achievement↗
PubMed2002

Medical students' personality characteristics and academic performance: a five-factor model perspective.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigates: (1) which personality traits are typical of medical students as compared to other students, and (2) which personality traits predict medical student performance in pre-clinical years. DESIGN: This paper reports a cross-sectional inventory study of students in nine academic majors and a prospective longitudinal study of one cohort of medical students assessed by inventory during their first preclinical year and by university examination at the end of each pre-clinical year. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: In 1997, a combined total of 785 students entered medical studies courses in five Flemish universities. Of these, 631 (80.4%) completed the NEO-PI-R (i.e. a measure of the Five-Factor Model of Personality). This was also completed by 914 Year 1 students of seven other academic majors at Ghent University. Year end scores for medical students were obtained for 607 students in Year 1, for 413 in Year 2, and for 341 in Year 3. RESULTS: Medical studies falls into the group of majors where students score highest on extraversion and agreeableness. Conscientiousness (i.e. self-achievement and self-discipline) significantly predicts final scores in each pre-clinical year. Medical students who score low on conscientiousness and high on gregariousness and excitement-seeking are significantly less likely to sit examinations successfully. CONCLUSIONS: The higher scores for extraversion and agreeableness, two dimensions defining the interpersonal dynamic, may be beneficial for doctors' collaboration and communication skills in future professional practice. Because conscientiousness affects examination results and can be reliably assessed at the start of a medical study career, personality assessment may be a useful tool in student counselling and guidance.

Belgium↗
PubMed1999

Relationship between conditional early acceptance into medical school and medical school leadership and academic performance: the Conley Scholar experience at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

UNLABELLED: The Conley Scholars Program at the University of Missouri-Columbia was created in 1987 to guarantee top flight students entrance to medical school without the frantic competition well known in undergraduate pre-med programs. The program provides greater freedom as undergraduates than most combined baccalaureate-MD programs. It is not known how this freedom and avoidance of the "pre-med syndrome" affects medical school performance and relative leadership qualities compared to traditional medical students. The goals of this study are to: a) compare relative composition and performance of Conley medical students to traditional medical students; b) assess the role of Conleys in leadership positions within medical school organizations. METHODS: Using the medical school computer data files and AMCAS application files, composition, academic, and leadership data were collected regarding all medical school classes containing Conleys. Statistical analysis was performed on all data. RESULTS: The results suggest that: a) Conley Scholars averaged significantly higher undergraduate GPAs than other medical students; b) Conley Scholars averaged higher GPAs throughout medical school; c) Conley Scholars are more likely to hold medical school leadership roles than traditional medical students. CONCLUSIONS: The results confirm the value of the Conley Scholar Program. Benefits extend beyond academic achievement to encompass the development of leadership skills recognized by faculty and peers.

Chi-Square Distribution↗
PubMed1995

Promoting academic performance in inattentive children. The relative efficacy of school-home notes with and without response cost.

The present study examined the effectiveness of two different school-home notes for increasing academic productivity and appropriate classroom behavior in five inattentive children. Using an alternating treatments design, students received a school-home note with or without response cost. Both notes required teachers to evaluate students and required parents to provide consequences on a daily basis. The notes differed as to whether reprimands and response cost were included. The results indicated that on-task behavior and academic work completion improved in all five elementary school-aged children. The majority of subjects achieved greater improvements in on-task behavior with the response-cost component added to the school-home note.

Achievement↗
PubMed1993

Changes in the patterns of specialties selected by high and low academic performers before and after 1980.

BACKGROUND: The goal of this study was to examine whether recently observed changes in the distribution of medical school graduates' choices are linked to level of academic achievement, graduation year, or both. METHOD: The authors studied the specialty selections made by two groups of graduates of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine: 319 who were elected to Alpha Omega Alpha and 276 who ranked academically in the bottom 10% of their classes. They also divided the groups into two time frames: 1964-1979 and 1980-1991. Two-way factorial analyses of variance compared the distributions of specialty selections according to time frame and to academic group. RESULTS: Significantly higher percentages of students in the low-achievement group selected primary care specialties (F = 14.76, p < .001), and this difference between the academic groups increased in recent years: 67% versus 41% in 1980-1991 compared with 53% versus 46% in 1964-1979. CONCLUSIONS: The specialty options most readily available to academically low-achieving medical school graduates are narrowing. Low achievers may be funneled into primary care simply because they cannot compete for other specialties. The authors recommend that: (1) recruitment and selection into primary care specialties should be made only after each candidate has been assessed over a broad range of cognitive and noncognitive factors and (2) academically low-ranking graduates should not end up in primary care specialties simply because no other specialty options are available to them.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1978

Neuropsychological significance of variations in patterns of academic performance: verbal and visual-spatial abilities.

Forty-five 9- to 14-year-old children with learning disabilties whose WISC Full Scale IQs fell within the range of 86-114 were divided into three groups on the basis of their patterns of reading, spelling, and arithmetic achievement. Group 1 was composed of children who were uniformly deficient in reading, spelling, and arithmetic; children in Group 2 were relatively adept at arithmetic as compared to their performance in reading and spelling; Group 3 was composed of children whose reading and spelling performances were average or above, but whose arithmetic performance was relatively deficient. The performances of these children on 16 dependent measures were compared. The performances of Groups 1 and 2 were superior to that of Group 3 on measures of visual-perceptual and visual-spatial abilities; Group 3 performed at a superior level to that of Groups 1 and 2 on measures of verbal and auditory-perceptual abilities. The results are discussed in terms of the relationships between varying patterns of academic abilities and patterns of brain-related behaviors, and the nature of the neuropsychological abilities that may limit performance on arithmetic calculation tasks.

Achievement↗
PubMed1997

Predicting academic performance of medical students: the first three years.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify a cluster of variables that would most economically explain variations in the grade point averages of medical students during the first 3 years of study. METHOD: Data were derived from a study of 92 students admitted to the 3rd Faculty of Medicine in 1992-1993 academic year and who were still in the medical school at the end of the sixth semester (third year). Stepwise regression analysis was used to build models for predicting log-transformed changes in grade point average after six semesters of study-at the end of the first, second, and third years. Predictor variables were chosen from four domains: 1) high school grade point averages in physics, mathematics, and the Czech language over 4 years of study, 2) results of admission tests in biology, chemistry, and physics, 3) admission committee's assessment of the applicant's ability to reproduce a text, motivation to study medicine, and social maturity, and 4) scores on the sentimentality and attachment scales of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire. RESULTS: The regression model, which included performance in high school physics, results of the admission test in physics, assessment of the applicant's motivation to study medicine, and attachment scale score, accounted for 32% of the change in grade point average over six semesters of study. The regression models using the first-, second-, and third-year grade point averages as the dependent variables showed slightly decreasing amounts of explained variance toward the end of the third year of study and within domains, changing the structure of predictor variables. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that variables chosen from the assessment domains of high school performance, written entrance examination, admission interview, and personality traits may be significant predictors of academic success during the first 3 years of medical study.

Achievement↗
PubMed1977

Physical stigma and academic performance as factors affecting children's first impressions of handicapped peers.

The effects of four variables on attitudes toward children were studied: the sex and social status of the rater and the physical appearance and academic competence of the target child being rated. The results indicated that competent and physically nonstigmatized children were rated more favorably than incompetent and physically stigmatized children. The data also revealed that girls had a significantly more positive stereotype than did boys of a competent male target child but that boys were more willing to be in physical proximity to the male target child as measured by a social-distance scale. Finally, the results indicated that popular children rated the attractive and competent target child less favorably than children who were not so popular. However, the popular children rated the attractive and incompetent target child more favorably than the less popular children did. The findings were discussed in terms of the salience of physical labels (i.e., stigma) on attitudes toward children.

Achievement↗
PubMed2004

Academic performance and behavioral difficulties after neonatal and infant heart surgery.

Although advances in medical and surgical arenas have allowed the ability to "mend" children born with congenital heart disease, the increasing number of survivors has created a growing cohort of children with potential academic difficulties. This article reviews the current understanding of the midterm neurologic outcomes of children who underwent neonatal and infant cardiac surgery. Lesions including transposition of great arteries, tetralogy of Fallot, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, total anomalous pulmonary venous connection, and single ventricle lesions requiring Fontan palliation or cardiac transplantation are discussed.

Child Behavior Disorders↗
PubMed1963

FACTORS RELATING TO ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF MEDICAL STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA.

The performance of medical students enrolled at the University of British Columbia from 1952 to 1961 is reviewed and related to certain descriptive factors available to the screening committee at the time of application. Almost 40% of enrolled students had academic difficulty in medical school; 16.4% failed a complete year. Since 91% of students who failed out, did so after freshman medicine examinations, these grades were examined for significant association with certain intellectual and non-intellectural factors. Sex and year of registration were not significantly associated with freshman performance, but permanent home address was: students from other Commonwealth countries did not perform as well as Canadians. Significant correlations were observed between both pre-medical grades and Medical College Admission Test scores and first-year medicine marks. By multiple regression analysis four factors were found to be predictive: age, number of pre-medical years completed at the time of application, overall pre-medical grade average and "Science" M.C.A.T. score. From the resulting equation, 77.4% of the grades of medical students who completed their freshman year in 1962 were predicted within one standard error. Students on the whole were noted to perform consistently in pre-medicine and medicine.

Canada↗
PubMed2000

When academic performance is higher than WISC-III IQs, is the sequential-processing model of intelligence the preferred approach to assessment?

The WISC-III is probably the most widely used measure of intelligence for children of school age. On occasion, an unusual psychometric profile emerges in which academic ability is much higher than would be expected for IQ. Initial data for 8 children suggest that the sequential-processing model of intelligence may be the preferred approach to assessment in such situations.

Achievement↗
PubMed2006

Enhancing academic performance by strengthening class-inclusion reasoning.

Class inclusion is an early form of abstract thought that requires logical rather than perceptually based inferences plus an appreciation of part-whole relationships (B. Inhelder and J. Piaget, 1959/1964). The authors randomly assigned 2 groups of first graders who were having academic difficulties to be instructed on either class inclusion or phonics. Results showed a significant linear relation between individual children's mastery of class inclusion and their scores on the Cognitive Abilities Test Form 6 (D. F. Lohman and E. P. Hagen, 2001) verbal and quantitative measures of reasoning. The authors also found a significant linear relation between mastery of class inclusion and improvement in report card marks issued by teachers who were blind to the children's group assignment.

Achievement↗
PubMed1985

Comparison of dental students' academic performance using honors/pass/fail and letter grades.

Performance in a second-year course in pedodontics/orthodontics for three classes of students at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine who received grades under an honors/pass/fail system was compared to that of three academically comparable classes that received letter grades. The average scores from the pedodontic/orthodontic section of the Part II National Board examination also were compared. The dental students taught under the letter grade system achieved a small but statistically significant higher grade point average in the dental course than the students taught under the honors/pass/fail system. The difference between the National Board scores was not statistically significant. It was concluded that while the letter grade system provided incentive for the students to perform at a higher level than those under the honors/pass/fail system, it did not influence their performance on the National Board examination.

Achievement↗
PubMed1977

Academic performance and social factors related to cigarette smoking by schoolchildren.

Factors which may influence boys and girls aged between 10 and 121/2 years to start smoking were studied. Information was obtained from 491 schoolchildren, their parents, and headteachers. In their own view and that of their headteachers children who did not smoke were academically better than smokers. Children who smoked were more likely than non-smokers to have a parent and siblings of the same sex who smoked. No association was found between the child's own smoking and that of parents and siblings of the opposite sex. Smokers were more likely to have friends who smoked. Most children did not think smoking was enjoyable or desirable and many thought it bad for health, irrespective of their own smoking habits. The majority thought people of their own age smoked to show off.

Achievement↗