Study Habits, Skills, and Attitudes: The Third Pillar Supporting Collegiate Academic Performance

Wellness Activities, Stress, and Academic Performance in Medical Students

INTRODUCTION

Medical student wellness has a range of effects from academic performance to tragic mortality. Many factors correlate with academic performance, including study environments, faculty support, research participation, and student attitude. Its relationship with student stress and wellness demonstrates mixed results. This study hopes to help clarify these results and will also assess the interplay of these factors in relation to the pre-clerkship and clerkship phases of medical school.

METHODS

This retrospective descriptive study was conducted using a de-identified database from 2017 to 2023, provided per an Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol. The subjects were the students of the classes of 2021-2027 at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. The database included performance data including semester, clinical subject, and USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 exam scores. Other data included variables relating to self-perceived stress and time spent in wellness activities before medical school and at the end of the pre-clerkship and clerkship phases of medical school. The effects of these variables were calculated with bivariate correlations and independent samples T-tests using cut-off points calculated from the class means of those variables. A total of 361 medical students were included in the study.

RESULTS

Students with high wellness time had lower stress levels in both the pre-clerkship and clerkship phases of medical school (5.83 vs. 7.3 p < 0.001* and 5.74 vs. 8.49 p < 0.001*, respectively). Students with low stress levels in the pre-clerkship phase scored 5.81 points higher on the Step 1 exam (p = 0.013*). Clerkship phase stress levels were significantly negatively correlated with all clinical subject exams except for pediatrics. Stress levels in the pre-clerkship and clerkship phases had similar relationships with the second and third semester and Step 2 exams, respectively, although not statistically significant. Wellness activity time did not have a significant relationship with academic performance.

CONCLUSION

Stress levels had significant negative relationships with many medical school exams. Although wellness activity time did not have a direct relationship with academic performance, its relationship with stress levels can allude to an indirect effect on academic performance. This, along with fending off burnout and stress, are reasons why medical student wellness should be a priority for medical schools, faculty, and their students.

Examining the Existence of Cognitive Thresholds in Highly Quantitative College Courses

While the dominant finding indicates a monotonic relationship between cognitive ability and academic performance, some researchers have suggested the existence of cognitive thresholds for challenging coursework, such that a certain level of cognitive ability is required for reaching a satisfactory level of academic achievement. Given the significance of finding a threshold for understanding the relationship between cognitive ability and academic performance, and the limited studies on the topic, it is worth further investigating the possibility of cognitive thresholds. Using a multi-institutional dataset and the necessary condition analysis (NCA), we attempted to replicate previous findings of cognitive thresholds on the major GPA of mathematics and physics-majored students, as well as the course grade of organic chemistry, to examine whether high SAT math scores constitute a necessary condition for obtaining satisfactory grades in these courses. The results from the two studies do not indicate an absolute cognitive threshold point below which students are doomed to fail regardless of the amount of effort they devote into learning. However, we did find that the chance of students with a low level of quantitative ability to succeed in highly quantitative courses is very small, which qualifies for the virtually necessary condition.

Modelling the associations between academic engagement, study process and grit on academic achievement of physical education and sport university students

OBJECTIVE

The present study examined the impact of academic engagement, study processes, and grit on the academic achievement of physical education and sport university students.

METHODS

An internet-based survey recruited 459 university students aged 19-25 years (M = 21 ± 1.3) in physical education and sports (PES) to fill out questionnaires on Physical Education-Study Process Questionnaire (PE-SPQ), Physical Education-Grit (PE-Grit), academic engagement (A-USEI), and Grade Point Average (GPA). A path analysis was carried out to understand variable relationships.

RESULTS

Data from each variable exhibited symmetrical and normal distribution, as indicated by the skewness and kurtosis values. The model's fit indices showed sufficient Comparative Fit Index (CFI = 0.92), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI = 0.90), Goodness of Fit Index (GFI = 0.99) and Normed Fit Index (NFI = 0.90) and showed acceptable levels. The results indicated a statistically significant positive impact of engagement (β = 0.299, p < 0.001) and study processes (β = 0.397, p < 0.001) on academic achievement. However, the effect of grit on achievement was non-significant.

CONCLUSIONS

Academic engagement as well as study processes are two important factors predicting academic achievement while grit seems to be not a major predictor. Hence, physical education and sport faculty and university administrators should prioritize student engagement as a determinant of academic outcomes by reforming or redesigning physical education and sport curriculum modules that can facilitate engagement.

Social and Emotional Skills Predict Postsecondary Enrollment and Retention

INTRODUCTION

Social and emotional (SE) skills are known to be linked to important life outcomes, many of which fall into the academic domain. For example, meta-analytic data show that the skill of Sustaining Effort is nearly or just as important for academic performance as intelligence. In a recent study with long-term tracking of high school students, those who came from schools with a strong emphasis on SE skill development were more likely to enroll in college within two years of high school graduation. Longitudinal studies like this one are rare, however.

METHOD

The focus of the present study is on the SE skills of 6662 students assessed during high school and their relationship with high school academic performance, standardized college admissions test performance, and ultimately postsecondary enrollment and retention.

RESULTS

We examined mean-level differences in household income, high school GPA, ACT Composite scores, and SE skills by college enrollment and retention status and found several significant differences, often favoring the enrolled or retained group. Moreover, we found support for the incremental validity of SE skills as they predicted enrollment and retention above household income, high school GPA, and ACT scores.

DISCUSSION

Understanding SE skills' effects on later academic outcomes is important to help inform early SE skill intervention and development efforts in secondary and postsecondary settings. Additional implications and future directions are discussed.

The influence of Big Five personality traits on college students' key competencies: the mediating effect of psychological capital

Background

In recent years, both society and employers have put forward higher requirements for the comprehensive quality of college students in the new era. Based on the conservation of resources theory and life-cycle approach, this study aimed to examine the relationship between the Big Five personality traits, the psychological capital, and the key competencies among college students and analyzed the mediating role of the psychological capital in this link.

Methods

A total of 1,132 Chinese undergraduates (67.40% girls; 48.67% from key universities) participated. Participants completed self-report questionnaires that evaluated the five key characteristics of personality, psychological capital, and key competencies.

Results

There were extremely significant university-type differences in key competencies of college students. And the mediating role of psychological capital in the link between Big Five personality traits and key competencies was validated according to PROCESS model 4. Psychological capital serves as a partial mediator in the relationships between neuroticism and critical thinking, openness and creativity, conscientiousness and creativity, openness and communication, conscientiousness and communication, extraversion and collaboration, as well as openness and collaboration. The proportion of mediating effects for the above models was 5.97, 10.89, 11.82, 12.24, 11.98, 12.39, and 22.72%, respectively.

Discussion

The findings provide a better understanding of the key competencies of college students from the perspectives of the Big Five personality traits and psychological capital and suggest a greater emphasis to focusing on personality and improving psychological capital.

Neural pathways of attitudes toward foreign languages predict academic performance

Learning attitude is thought to impact students' academic achievement and success, but the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms of learning attitudes remain unclear. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the neural markers linked to attitudes toward foreign languages and how they contribute to foreign-language performance. Forty-one Chinese speakers who hold differentiated foreign language (English) attitudes were asked to complete an English semantic judgment task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment. Multimethod brain imaging analyses showed that, compared with the positive attitude group (PAG), the negative attitude group (NAG) showed increased brain activation in the left STG and functional connectivity between the left STG and the right precentral gyrus (PCG), as well as changed functional segregation and integration of brain networks under the English reading task, after controlling for English reading scores. Mediation analysis further revealed that left STG activity and STG-PCG connectivity mediated the relationships between English attitudes and English reading performance. Taken together, these findings suggest that objective neural markers related to subjective foreign language attitudes (FLAs) exist and that attitude-related neural pathways play important roles in determining students' academic performance. Our findings provide new insights into the neurobiological mechanisms by which attitudes regulate academic performance.

Breaking the mold: Study strategies of students who improve their achievement on introductory biology exams

Students' use of learning strategies (i.e., what students do when studying) is linked to their achievement in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses, and several study strategies have been individually associated with course and exam grades in multiple contexts. In this study, we surveyed students in a learner-centered, large-enrollment introductory biology course about their study strategies. We aimed to identify groups of strategies that students often reported together, possibly reflecting broader approaches to studying. Exploratory factor analysis revealed three groups of study strategies frequently co-reported (which we named housekeeping strategies, use of course materials, and metacognitive strategies). These strategy groups map onto a model of learning that associates specific suites of strategies to phases of learning, which correspond to different levels of cognitive and metacognitive engagement. Consistent with previous work, only some study strategies were significantly associated with exam scores: students reporting higher use of course materials and of metacognitive strategies earned higher scores on the first course exam. Students who improved on the subsequent course exam reported increasing their use of housekeeping strategies and of course materials. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of students' approaches to studying in introductory college biology and of the relationships between study strategies and achievement. This work may support instructors in adopting intentional classroom practices to foster students' development as self-regulated learners, able to identify expectations and criteria for success and to implement appropriate and effective study strategies.

Dynamically Changing Mental Stress Parameters of First-Year Medical Students over the Three-Year Course of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study

Numerous research results have already pointed towards the negative influence of increased mental stress on educational processes and motivational criteria. It has also been shown that the global public health crisis induced by COVID-19 was related to anxiety symptoms and elevated levels of distress. To holistically elucidate the dynamics of the pandemic-related mental stress of first-year medical students, the associated parameters of three different cohorts were measured at the beginning of the pandemic-related restrictions on university life in Germany (20/21), at the peak of the COVID-19-related restrictions (21/22) and during the easing of the restrictions in the winter term 22/23. In a repeated cross-sectional study design, the constructs of worries, tension, demands and joy were collected from first-year medical students (n = 578) using the Perceived Stress Questionnaire. The results demonstrate significantly increased values of the constructs worries (p < 0.001), tension (p < 0.001) and demands (p < 0.001) at the peak of the pandemic related restrictions compared to the previous and following year as well as significantly decreasing values of general joy of life during the observed period of 3 years (all p-values < 0.001). A confirmatory factor analysis was performed to verify the questionnaire's factor structure regarding the addressed target group during the pandemic (CFI: 0.908, RMSEA: 0.071, SRMR: 0.052). These data, collected over a period of three years, provide information regarding dynamically manifesting mental stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, and refer to new areas of responsibility for the faculties to adequately counteract future crisis situations.

A multisite transition to nursing program: an innovative approach to facilitate incoming nursing students' academic success

OBJECTIVES

Evaluate effectiveness of a multisite program promoting the successful transition of baccalaureate and graduate entry (with a prior degree) students into pre-licensure curricula. Faculty concern around nursing students' successful completion of nursing programs and passage of the nursing licensure exam stems from challenges students encounter in core courses, study habits, and civility.

METHODS

One hundred eighty-five students participated in a quasi-experimental pre-post-test mixed-methods study. Students completed content modules and open-ended surveys.

RESULTS

Most students found the program helpful. Statistically significant improvements were shown in medication calculation, reading comprehension, and medical terminology. No statistically significant improvement was shown in anatomy and physiology.

CONCLUSIONS

Our Transition to Nursing program shows promise and adds to proactive strategies in preparing students for a successful transition into nursing programs. Our innovative approach may serve as a model to nursing schools and colleges around the world to promote student success.

Mental health symptoms and academic achievement factors

Objective: Assess academic habits and self-efficacy of college students with serious mental illnesses and explore their relationship with mental health symptoms. Participants: College students with serious mental illnesses. Methods: Baseline data from students recruited for an intervention study were gathered using psychometrically sound instruments assessing symptom distress, procrastination, study habits, academic self-efficacy, and campus engagement. Results were compared to reference samples of college students without identified mental health issues and then correlational analyses were conducted to examine their relationship with degree of mental health symptom distress. Results: Students with serious mental illnesses scored lower on most measures associated with academic performance. Greater symptom distress was associated with poorer academic habits and self-efficacy, but not campus engagement. Conclusions: This study supports hypothesized mechanisms by which mental health symptoms impact academic performance and suggests interventions aimed at addressing these factors while treatment is in process.

Friends know you: Peer nomination of self-control predict changes in academic achievement and friendship among adolescents

INTRODUCTION

Self-control predicts academic achievement and social outcomes in adolescents. Despite the increased role of peers in the lives of adolescents, little is known about whether peers' views of an individual's self-control have predictive validity for academic and social outcomes.

METHOD

In a longitudinal study involving over 1500 adolescents (M_age  = 13.74), we examined whether peer nomination of self-control provides incremental predictive validity over and above self-reports for rank-order changes in academic achievement and friendship (i.e., the total number of nominations received as a best friend). To do so, we followed 8th graders through the 9th grade, measuring self-reported self-control (academic vs. social), peer-nominated self-control (academic vs. social), grade point average, and friendship.

RESULTS

Peer-nominated academic self-control predicted rank-order changes in grade point average and peer-nominated interpersonal self-control predicted rank-order changes in friendship over and above self-reported academic and interpersonal self-control.

CONCLUSION

Our findings demonstrate the predictive utility of peer nominations in research on self-control.

Supporting Undergraduate Biology Students' Academic Success: Comparing Two Workshop Interventions

College students' performance in introductory-level biology course work is an important predictor of ongoing persistence in the major. This study reports on a researcher-educator partnership that designed and compared two cocurricular workshops. Seventeen laboratory sections of an undergraduate biology course were randomly assigned to one of two educational interventions during the regularly scheduled lab class section after students had completed and received the results for the first exam. The baseline Metacognition intervention was an hourlong workshop focused on effective learning strategies and self-awareness in the learning process; the extended Metacognition plus Time Management (Metacognition+TM) intervention included the aforementioned workshop plus a second hourlong workshop on time management and procrastination. Based on three exams and self-report surveys administered before the intervention and at the end of the semester, students who participated in the Metacognition+TM intervention experienced greater increases in their exam scores and degree commitment than those in the baseline intervention. Additionally, group status moderated the effect of the intervention, as the Metacognition+TM intervention was especially effective in increasing use of time management tools by students from minoritized groups.

Effects of voluntary attendance patterns on first-year medical students' wellness and academic performance during COVID-19

There is increasing evidence that attendance is not a reliable predictor of academic performance, which invites the question of whether attendance may have alternative positive effects such as increased student wellness. While conducting an observational cohort study on the relationship of attendance to performance and wellness, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown changed the ability of students to attend class. Matriculating medical students were recruited to participate at the beginning of their first year in August 2019. In-person attendance was collected prospectively until the lockdown began in March 2020. This was then correlated with performance on course final examinations and responses to two separate incidences of a survey on stress, burnout, social isolation, and loneliness. The first survey was deployed January through February 2020 (pre-COVID) and the second June 2020 (during COVID lockdown). Attendance declined across the year (76.0%-25.0%). There was a small positive correlation of attendance to performance in module 1 (r = 0.235, P = 0.035) with none in the remaining two modules (P = 0.870, P = 0.410). The high attenders at the time of the lockdown had no decline in their performance when attendance was no longer possible. Attendance negatively correlated with stress and loneliness but not with the remainder of the wellness metrics. There was no significant change in any of the wellness metrics between the pre-COVID and during COVID time points. While the data support the conclusion that attendance is not required to maintain performance in this population, these data suggest a small protective effect against stress and loneliness.

Study Habits of Highly Effective Medical Students

BACKGROUND

Study habits have been the most significant indicator of academic performance and play a unique role in students' academic accomplishment. The study is aiming to determine the most common study habits of highly successful medical students and their relation to academic achievement.

METHODS

A cross-sectional observational study was conducted from September to December 2019 among medical students of both gender from six medical colleges in Saudi Arabia. The students answered the standardized questionnaires to study the different learning habits among medical students, including learning prioritization, knowledge retention strategies, motivation, daily hours of studying, study learning resources.

RESULTS

Six hundred and seventy-five medical students enrolled themselves electively into the study. The results showed a significant correlation between study habits and students' academic accomplishments. The top ten study habits of highly effective medical students are managing their time effectively, they get rid of interruptions (phone, family, friends) that disrupt their daily work, they use goal-setting to determine their most important activities, their daily study hours is ranging between 3 and 4 hours, they study alone for knowledge retention of medical information, learn from multiple sources and invest in technology with high efficiency, they contribute to the teaching of their peers, they study the main lecture slides with notes when no exam is coming, and they study lecture slides with notes and previous exam questions when preparing for upcoming exams; finally, they maintained motivation for self-gratification and fulfillment of their family dreams.

CONCLUSION

This study's outcomes consolidate general study practices that can be credited to learning achievement and expand recognition to inspire less accomplished students by investigating and exploring factors that have enhanced and worked for many accomplished students.

Academic enablers as dynamic moderators: Exploring academic enablers and achievement across elementary school

The purpose of the current study was to advance the understanding of the cross-grade dynamics of academic enablers in three ways: (a) to compare overall levels of academic enablers across children's elementary school years, (b) to determine if the relationship between academic enablers and academic achievement remained consistent across children's elementary school years, and (c) to determine if the interrelationships between academic enablers remained consistent across elementary school. We examined cross-grade dynamics using a sample of elementary-aged children (N = 536) and structural equation modeling methodology to compare primary (K-3rd grade) and intermediate (4th-5th grade) students. After establishing measurement invariance, we tested whether (a) academic enabler means and variances were equivalent for younger and older elementary students, (b) the relationships between academic enablers and academic achievement were equivalent for younger and older elementary students, and (c) the interrelations between academic enablers were equivalent for younger versus older students. The findings revealed few differences in mean levels of academic enablers but several differences in the relationships between academic enablers and academic achievement, as well as academic enabler interrelations across grade groups. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.

The role of the shared environment in college attainment: An adoption study

OBJECTIVE

College attainment is one of the few phenotypes to have substantial variance accounted for by environmental factors shared by reared-together relatives. The shared environment is implicated by the consistently strong parent-to-offspring transmission of college attainment. The mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. We use genetically informative methods with a longitudinal, adoption sample to identify possible environmental mechanisms underlying parent-offspring college transmission.

METHOD

Data were drawn from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS), which includes 409 adoptive and 208 nonadoptive families, consisting of two offspring followed from adolescence into young adulthood and their rearing parents. Four domains of environmental mechanisms were examined: (a) skill enhancement; (b) academic support; (c) material advantage; and (d) supportive family environment.

RESULTS

Both shared environmental and genetic factors contributed to the parent-offspring transmission of college attainment. However, highly educated parents did not appear to be increasing their adopted offspring's attainment through skill development. The environmental factors that were associated with increased odds of offspring college attainment were mother's academic expectations and family income.

CONCLUSIONS

While complete mediation of the parent-offspring transmission of college attainment was not identified, the results shed light on some of the mechanisms associated with the common environment variance in the college attainment phenotype.

To What Extent Do Study Habits Relate to Performance?

Students' study sessions outside class are important learning opportunities in college courses. However, we often depend on students to study effectively without explicit instruction. In this study, we described students' self-reported study habits and related those habits to their performance on exams. Notably, in these analyses, we controlled for potential confounds, such as academic preparation, self-reported class absences, and self-reported total study time. First, we found that, on average, students used approximately four active strategies to study and that they spent about half of their study time using active strategies. In addition, both the number of active strategies and the proportion of their study time using active strategies positively predicted exam performance. Second, on average, students started studying 6 days before an exam, but how early a student started studying was not related to performance on in-term (immediate) or cumulative (delayed) exams. Third, on average, students reported being distracted about 20% of their study time, and distraction while studying negatively predicted exam performance. These results add nuance to lab findings and help instructors prioritize study habits to target for change.

Data survey on the factors affecting students' satisfaction and academic performance among private universities in Vietnam

This paper presents the dataset that estimate the effect of factors on students' satisfaction and their academic performance. The questionnaire with a five-Likert scale ware adapted and developed from prior researches. The sample consisted of 430 fulfilled respondents using stratified random sampling, which recruited from eight private universities in the North of Vietnam. A quantitative method was employed to examine the data. Cronbach's Alpha, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis were utilized to test the reliability and validity of each variable as well as the model fit. Then, the structural equation modeling was used to estimate path coefficients, which can serve as a good reference for further researches.

Changing Study Strategies with Revised Anatomy Curricula: a Move for Better or Worse?

Investigations into medical student study strategies have seen an increase in recent years, but we have also seen a move to more integrated medical curricula during this time. This manuscript endeavors to assess the changes in study plans and students' reported study strategies that are associated with a move from a traditional stand-alone anatomy curriculum to an integrated, standardized curriculum. Previously validated study strategy surveys were given to medical students at the beginning of their anatomy course and again at the end of the course. These responses were then correlated with basic demographic information and outcomes in anatomy. Results indicate that this change in curriculum does correlate with changes to students' study plans and reported study strategies. In particular, the plans for and use of web-based resources appear higher in the new curriculum while the use of self-quizzing and attendance appear lower, with potentially negative implications for understanding and long-term retention. Differences were also seen between genders and student ages. Finally, a few associations with outcomes are also noted for increased use of web-based resources and student confidence going into the exam.

Toward Sustainable Learning during School Suspension: Socioeconomic, Occupational Aspirations, and Learning Behavior of Vietnamese Students during COVID-19

The overspread of the novel coronavirus—SARS-CoV-2—over the globe has caused significant damage to manufacturing and service businesses, regardless of whether they are commercial, public, or not-for-profit sectors. While both the short-term and long-term impacts of most companies can be approximately measured or estimated, it is challenging to address the enduring effects of COVID-19 on teaching and learning activities. The target of this research is to investigate students’ manners of studying at home during the school suspension time as a result of COVID-19. Through analyzing original survey data from 420 K6–12 students in Hanoi, Vietnam, this work demonstrates the different learning habits of students with different socioeconomic statuses and occupational aspirations during the disease’s outbreak. In particular, we featured the differences in students’ learning behaviors between private schools and public schools, as well as between students who plan to follow STEM-related careers and those who intend to engage in social science-related careers. The empirical evidence of this study can be used for the consideration of the local government to increase the sustainability of coming policies and regulations to boost students’ self-efficacy, as it will affect 1.4 million students in Hanoi, as well as the larger population of nearly 10 million Vietnamese students. These results can also be the foundation for future investigations on how to elevate students’ learning habits toward Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4)—Quality Education—especially in fanciful situations in which the regular school operation has been disrupted, counting with limited observation and support from teachers and parents.

Measuring Metacognitive Knowledge, Monitoring, and Control in the Pharmacy Classroom and Experiential Settings

Objective. To provide a user's guide on measuring metacognition in authentic contexts so that educators and researchers can explore students' metacognition with an aim towards improving their students' metacognitive processes and achievement. Findings. Metacognition can be measured in a variety of ways depending on whether the interest is knowledge, monitoring, or control. These methods include surveys, assessment of student predictions versus their performance on examinations, or investigating students' decisions during their learning process. Summary. Metacognition refers to people's knowledge about and regulation of their cognitive processes. These aspects of metacognition are important for supporting students' success in academic and experiential settings. In particular, students who recognize successful learning strategies can accurately monitor their own progress and make effective study decisions that are more likely to help them meet their learning goals. Thus, measuring metacognitive knowledge, monitoring, and control can help educators identify struggling students who may benefit from interventions to improve their metacognitive processes.

App-Based Habit Building Reduces Motivational Impairments During Studying - An Event Sampling Study

In this app-based event sampling study, we observed the intentional formation of new study habits. A sample of 91 university students defined individual study habits and logged data over 6 weeks on motivational conflict, motivational interference (MI) and automaticity of behavior after each habit repetition using an app on their phone. The app was specifically created for this study and gave feedback on habit automaticity. A total of N = 2,574 habit repetitions have been generated and were analyzed using multilevel modeling. The results suggest that (1) app-based intentional habit building works, as automaticity of behavior could be predicted by habit repetition, (2) motivational impairments during studying can be reduced by building habits, as want conflicts and MI decreased with automaticity, and (3) trait self-control supports studying indirectly by fostering habit building rather than directly by suppressing impulses during the activity, as self-control predicted automaticity, but not motivational impairments during the habit execution. The effect of self-control on automaticity of the new study habit was fully mediated by the general automaticity of the students' other study habits (general study habit strength). This study showcases an app-guided genesis of new study habits and its beneficial motivational effects for learning behavior.

Understanding behavioural engagement and achievement: The roles of teaching practices and student sense of competence and task value

BACKGROUND

Different teaching practices, such as autonomy support and structure, provide students with a positive learning context supporting their engagement, which can operate through their underlying motivation, including sense of competence and task value.

AIMS

This study aims at investigating the best configuration (unique or synergistic) between autonomy support and structure to support student behavioural engagement, including compliance, participation, and misbehaviour, and reading achievement. A second objective is to assess students' sense of competence and task value as mediators linking teaching practices to student engagement and achievement.

SAMPLE

The samples included 1,666 7th-grade students and their 85 teachers. Students answered questionnaires and tests at the beginning and the end of the school year.

METHODS

Students' perceptions of the use of autonomy support and structure by their Language Arts teacher were aggregated at the classroom level. Students rated their sense of competence and task value in Language Arts class. Twice during the school year, they also reported three facets of their behavioural engagement (compliance, participation, and misbehaviour) and answered a reading comprehension test. Multilevel path analyses using Mplus7 allowed accounting for the nested structure of data.

RESULTS

Student sense of competence mediated the association of student classroom-aggregated perceptions of teacher structure and autonomy support with self-reported participation in the classroom. Task value mediated the association between both teaching practices and student misbehaviour and compliance, as reported by students. Sense of competence was directly associated with later reading achievement, but the indirect effect of teaching practices was not significant. We found no significant interaction (synergistic effect) between teacher autonomy support and structure.

CONCLUSION

Student classroom-aggregated perception of teacher autonomy support and structure is important to nurture behavioural engagement. However, we found no extra benefit of combining these two dimensions of teaching practices. The processes linking these teaching practices to the three facets of student behavioural engagement were different. As such, to support the various aspects of student engagement, the actions of teachers, as reported by their students, should tap into the mechanisms that are most strongly related to each type of behaviour.

Attitude, but not self-evaluated knowledge, correlates with academic performance in physiology in Thai medical students

Positive attitude and self-evaluation are necessary for medical students and doctors. To explore how best to integrate physiology teaching in our Thai medical curriculum, we investigated relationships between student's academic performance, their attitude, self-evaluated knowledge, and proportion of physiology taught in an organ-system integrated block. We organized 13 physiology laboratory classes, during which students self-rated attitude and knowledge. Academic performance was measured by formative and summative assessments. One hundred thirty-six participants were categorized into most proactive (Most PA), more proactive (More PA), less proactive (Less PA), and least proactive (Least PA) attitude groups by self-preparation questionnaire. Eighty participants were categorized into high (HighE), moderate (ModerateE), and low (LowE) self-evaluation rating groups. Mean formatives score in the Most PA group was significantly higher than in the other PA groups (P = 0.003, P = 0.001, and P < 0.001, respectively). Mean summative score in the Most PA group was significantly higher than the Less PA and the Least PA groups (P = 0.017 and P = 0.015 respectively). There was no significant difference in mean assessment scores among HighE, ModerateE, and LowE groups. Proportion of teaching time dedicated to physiology positively correlated with student attitude (r = 0.84, P = 0.001) and negatively correlated with self-evaluation rating (r = -0.73, P = 0.007). Thai medical students may benefit from a proactive attitude to studying physiology, contrasting with traditional didactic expectations of Thai education. Proportion of teaching time dedicated to physiology does not influence academic performance; therefore, future adjustments to curriculum integration may incorporate classes that facilitate self-directed learning. Future study should explore other influences on learning and assessment performance.

Determinants of academic performance in medical students: evidence from a medical school in south-east Nigeria

BACKGROUND

Medical education is considered one of the toughest college degrees to acquire. Exploring the factors that determine good academic performance in medical school will help in the planning of curriculum and assist students to navigate through medical school more effectively.

METHODS

This cross-sectional and descriptive study enrolled 145 second year clinical students (500 level) of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology in south-east Nigeria using purposive and convenient sampling method. It assessed factors that predicted good academic performances in surveyed students.

RESULTS

Medical students without membership in any campus group, those that receive(s) less than ten thousand naira (≈US$27) every month as upkeep allowance, those admitted through the University Matriculation Examination, and students who visit their families on a weekly basis were more likely to have better academic performances than those in corresponding categories. Of these significant predictors of good academic performance, mode of admission into medical school (Rs=-0.310 P=0.001) and monthly allowance students got for upkeep (Rs=-0.281 P=0.001) had the strongest correlation with good academic performances.

CONCLUSION

Our study identified factors that correlate with academic performances among medical students. We propose frequent appraisal of these factors and support system that will help improve performance in these students.

Not All Factors Contribute Equally to European-American and Hispanic Students' SAT Scores

This exploratory study shows that the contributions of cognitive, metacognitive awareness, performance avoidance, test anxiety, and socioeconomic family background factors to SAT scores (i.e., overall SAT, SAT-V, SAT-M) may vary as a function of ethnicity (i.e., European-American, Hispanic). Four hundred and fifty-seven students, 282 European-American and 175 Hispanic, completed multiple measures of cognitive, metacognitive awareness, social/personality (i.e., test anxiety, performance avoidance, academic self-efficacy), and socioeconomic family background factors, which were used in regression analyses predicting overall SAT, SAT-V, and SAT-M scores. The results show that most factors contributed significantly to overall SAT, SAT-M, and SAT-V scores. In addition, the ethnicity X test anxiety interaction was significant for all three SAT measures, a finding that suggests ethnic differences in the contributions of test anxiety to overall SAT, SAT-M, and SAT-V scores. For European-American students, test anxiety had no influence on overall SAT and SAT-M scores, whereas for Hispanic students test anxiety had a negative influence on overall SAT and SAT-M scores. For SAT-V scores, interpreting the ethnicity X test anxiety interaction was more complicated because both the significant main effect of test anxiety and the ethnicity X test anxiety interaction must be interpreted together. Whereas test anxiety negatively influenced European-Americans' SAT-V scores, this negative influence was less than the influence it had on Hispanic students' SAT-V scores. Indeed, for Hispanic students with high test anxiety, this negative influence was profound. Taken as a whole, these results suggest that any theory explaining the SAT may need to take into account multiple predictors as well as the possibility that the contributions of these predictors may vary as a function of ethnicity.