Effects of Course Related Factors on Academic Performances of Undergraduates-A Study with Science Courses

Abstract

Aims: Academic performances of undergraduate students may depend on many factors. Researches in literature have taken different factors into consideration and these effects may vary depending on different aspects such as place, period and group. This study aimed to identify effects of course related factors on academic performances, which are linked with design of courses. As the course related factors, subject of course, type of course (theoretical, practical), volume of course (number of credits), and level of course (year of study)  were considered. Place and Duration of Study: This study was carried out at Faculty of Science, Eastern University, Sri Lanka with the undergraduate courses in the science stream and results of students in a batch completed the degree recently. Methodology: A group of all students in a batch that recently passed out from the faculty was used as the sample and there were 109 students. Data including gender, stream of study, subject of course, type of course (theoretical/practical), volume of course in terms of numbers of credits, levels of courses were gathered as the factors and grades of courses was taken as the measure that represents academic performances of students. Grades were transformed to grade point values and then it was used as the main response. Analysis was carried out with both parametric and nonparametric statistical approaches. Results: It could be revealed that academic performances of undergraduates depend on course related factors tested. Performances tend to decrease with the increase in number of credits of the course meanwhile higher performances could be observed in practical courses compared with theory based courses. Irrespective of other factors, performances for courses in the third year of study were higher than that of courses in other years of studies. Conclusion: Academic performances of undergraduates are dependent on these factors related to courses. However, it needs further work to generalize the results.