Library anxiety, library use and academic performance of undergraduate students in Pakistan

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (8/9) ◽  
pp. 564-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sajjad Ullah Jan ◽  
Mumtaz Ali Anwar ◽  
Nosheen Fatima Warraich
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Grade Point ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Library Anxiety ◽  
Library Use ◽  
The Status

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of library anxiety, which has received relatively little research attention in Pakistan, and its relationship with library use, academic performance (grade point average), gender and academic discipline among the undergraduate students. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected using a questionnaire from 725 fourth year undergraduate students of three different disciplines from three universities. The participation was voluntary. The data were processed using SPSS version 20. Findings A majority of the respondents (72.1 per cent) experienced a mild library anxiety. The factors: user education and user knowledge were the greatest sources of library anxiety. Findings revealed differences in library anxiety on the basis of gender and academic discipline. Library anxiety and academic performance had a significant negative relationship with each other. Originality/value This is the first study in Pakistan that addressed library anxiety and its relationship with library use, academic discipline and academic performance using a large group (N = 725) of undergraduate students.

STEM undergraduate students: library use, perceptions and GPA

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung Mi Scoulas
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Student Survey ◽  
Grade Point ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Stem Disciplines ◽  
Library Use ◽  
Library Resources ◽  
User Groups ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Online Library

PurposeThis study aims to examine if differences exist in undergraduate students' library use, perceptions and grade point average (GPA) among science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM disciplines.Design/methodology/approachThe current study used data from the 2018 student survey. Among 2,277 students who completed the survey (response rate = 8%), only undergraduate students (n = 1,265) were selected for this study because the current study aims to examine the differences between STEM and non-STEM undergraduate students.FindingsThe findings from a Mann–Whitney U test revealed that STEM respondents perceived specific library resources (subject and course guide, library instructions and library workshops) as slightly less than non-STEM respondents. The results from ANOVA demonstrated that the mean scores in GPA for STEM respondents who never used online library, journals and databases were lower than respondents who used those library resources, regardless of STEM and non-STEM disciplines.Originality/valueRevisiting the data collected and analyzing specific user groups will be valuable to academic libraries because this study will provide academic librarians with a deeper understanding of specific user needs and perceptions of library resources and services.

Determinants of the academic performance of undergraduate students in statistics bachelor’s degree program

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-23
Author(s):  
Darwish Abdulrahman Yousef
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Degree Program ◽  
Bachelor's Degree ◽  
Grade Point ◽  
University Policy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Undergraduate Statistics

PurposeThe present study aims to investigate the effects of a number of demographic and academic factors, such as gender, age, nationality (Emirati vs non-Emirati), high school major (arts vs science) and high school score, on the academic performance – measured by overall grade point average – of undergraduate students majoring in statistics at United Arab Emirates University.Design/methodology/approachThis study includes 188 undergraduate statistics students (142 female and 46 male) for the academic years 2012-2013 to 2015-2016. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the collected data.FindingsThe results indicate that gender, age and nationality have no significant impacts on the academic performance of undergraduate students in statistics bachelor’s degree program, while high school major and high school score do.Research limitations/implicationsThis study had several limitations. First, only students of one university were included in this study, which would have limited the generalizability of the results. Second, the study focused on the impact of a limited number of factors on academic performance of undergraduate statistics students. But, the study has a number of implications for students, educators and university policy-makers.Originality/valueThe present study is the first attempt to explore the factors that might affect the academic performance of undergraduate students in statistics bachelor’s degree program in an Arabic setting.

scholarly journals Relationship of Academic Performance and Academic Self-Concept with Career Decision-Making among UPM Undergraduate Students

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Siti Nadhirah Mohd Zaini ◽  
Ahmad Aizuddin Md Rami ◽  
Nurazidawati Mohamad Arsad ◽  
Mohd Ashraff Mohd Anuar
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Career Paths ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Career Decision ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Cluster Sampling ◽  
Career Decision Making ◽  
Grade Point

Abstract: Choosing the right career paths relevant to their future is probably one of the most challenging decisions confronting the majority of adolescents. Hence, recognition of the factors affecting students’ career decisions is more important than ever. This study aimed to investigate the effects of academic performance and academic self-concept in relation to career decision-making among UPM undergraduate students. A quantitative research design using a questionnaire was utilised. The questionnaire, one touching on academic self-concept and the other on career decision-making, was disseminated to the respondents via emails and through social network services in the form of Google Forms. For data on academic performance, the researcher based it on the students’ current Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) results. The Multi-stage cluster sampling method was employed to a total of 171 final-year undergraduates from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). The data were analysed using SmartPLS 3. The result of partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) revealed that the students’ academic self-concept directly and significantly affects their career decision-making. However, there is no direct relationship between academic performance and career decision-making. This study found that developing students’ academic self-concept can assist them to decide on their career paths.   Keywords: Academic achievement, Academic self-concept, Career choice, Higher education

Examining timely graduation rates of undergraduate students

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelzang Tentsho ◽  
Nittaya McNeil ◽  
Phattrawan Tongkumchum
Keyword(s):  
Graduation Rates ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Multivariate Logistic Regression Model ◽  
Higher Educational Institutions ◽  
Grade Point ◽  
Content Type ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Higher Educational ◽  
The Right

Purpose Graduation rates are commonly used to assess the quality of higher educational institutions. While universities strive to produce as many graduates as possible, maintaining the right balance between the number of new students enrolled and the number who graduate each year has become a challenge in the past few decades. Timely graduation is often disregarded because a large majority of the students do not graduate within the stipulated time. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors associated with timely degree attainment. Design/methodology/approach The data for this study were obtained from records maintained by Registrar Office, Prince of Songkla University, Pattani Campus, Thailand. The final sample comprised 1,330 undergraduate students enrolled at four major faculties in 2009. A multivariate logistic regression model was applied to explain the effects of independent variables on timely graduation. Findings About 81.0 percent had completed their degree program within the stipulated time. The results indicated that faculty, first-semester grade point average, gender and place of residence were significantly associated with timely graduation. Originality/value Findings from this study may serve as a guide to higher educational institutions in identifying the underlying factors, and accordingly develop programs to enhance on time degree completion rates.

Influence of stress and coping strategies on undergraduate students' performance

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luqman Oyekunle Oyewobi ◽  
Gbolahan Bolarin ◽  
Naomi Temitope Oladosu ◽  
Richard Ajayi Jimoh
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Stress ◽  
Stress And Coping ◽  
Stress Coping ◽  
University Administration ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Stress Coping Strategies ◽  
And Coping

PurposeThis study examined the causes of academic stress amongst undergraduate students in the Department of Quantity Surveying to ascertain whether stress has an influence on their academic performance.Design/methodology/approachThis research explores the relationships between these constructs: academic stress, non-academic stress, coping strategies and academic performance, using a survey questionnaire to collect data from 190 undergraduate students in the Quantity Survey department. Descriptive statistics have been used to analyse the data and a path analytical approach has been adopted to evaluate the relationship between the constructs discussed in the paper.FindingsSignificant linear associations have been established between all the proposed paths and the outcome factor (p < 0.00). Coping strategies were an important mediator (p = 0.000), as they explained 32.9% of the association between academic stress and non-academic stress. However, the findings have shown that the stress faced by students is an optimal degree of stress that improves learning capabilities.Practical implicationsExplanation and clarification of the effects of academic and non-academic stress and coping mechanisms on the academic performance of university undergraduate students could help to reduce the risk of suicide amongst the teeming youths. It will also afford the university administration the opportunity to engender stress-free environment that is conducive for learning through the formulation of appropriate policies that promote “balanced learning” for the students. The outcome of this study may provide a launch pad for researchers who are interested in knowing how the possible causes of stress may impact on the health of university students.Originality/valueThe findings will be of great importance to the academic advisers and university administration in developing a flexible academic calendar and adopt policies that will eliminate academic stress and promote strategies to cope with non-academic stress. The study is the first attempt to examine academic stress, non-academic stress, coping strategies and academic performance in a single research in the Nigerian context due to limited literature found. This study has pedagogical implications to education practice by offering tertiary institutions the opportunity to appraise and device a means of managing students' stress by identifying their needs and increase students' coping skills based on prevailing modalities that give students' opportunities to strengthen the strategies of coping.

scholarly journals Smartphone Addiction among University Students and Its Relationship with Academic Performance

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jocelyne Boumosleh ◽  
Doris Jaalouk
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
Smartphone Addiction ◽  
Lifestyle Behaviors ◽  
Grade Point ◽  
Smartphone Use

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Smartphone use is almost universally relied on among college students. Whether smartphone addiction among college students has a negative predictive effect on academic performance is hardly studied. Previous research found an apparent association between smartphone use and academic achievement partly explained by the nature of the task the student is engaged in when using a smartphone. This study aims to assess the relationship between smartphone addiction and students’ academic performance controlling for important potential confounding variables.METHODS: A sample of 688 undergraduate students was randomly selected from Notre Dame University, Lebanon. Students were asked to fill out a questionnaire that included a) questions on variables related to socio-demographics, academics, smartphone use, and lifestyle behaviors; and b) a 26-item Smartphone Addiction Inventory (SPAI) Scale. Multiple logistic regression was performed to assess the independent association between smartphone addiction and cumulative grade point average (GPA).RESULTS: 49% reported smartphone use for at least 5 hours during a weekday. Controlling for confounding effects in the model, the association between total SPAI score and GPA did not reach statistical significance, whereas alcohol drinking (OR= 2.10, p=0.026), age at first use of smartphone (OR=1.20, p=0.042), use of smartphone for study-related purposes (OR=0.31, p=0.000), class (OR=0.35 (senior vs. sophomore standing), p=0.024), and faculty (ORs of 0.38 and 0.35 (engineering and humanities, respectively, vs. business students)) were found to be independent predictors of reporting a GPA of < 3.CONCLUSION: Findings from our study can be used to better inform college administrators and faculty about most-at- risk groups of students who shall be targeted in any intervention designed to enhance low academic performance.

scholarly journals Information literacy

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 582-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Walton ◽  
Jamie Cleland
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Peer Assessment ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Journal Article ◽  
Discussion Board ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Practice Architectures ◽  
Online Conversation ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative investigation into whether online textual postings, produced by undergraduate students as part of an undergraduate module, can demonstrate their information literacy (IL) capabilities as a discursive competence and socially enacted practice. It also asks whether these online postings embody power relations between students, tutors and librarians. Design/methodology/approach Foucault’s notion of discursive competence and the separate but complementary concept of practice architectures (specifically focussing on “sayings”) devised by Lloyd were used as thematic lenses to categorise online discussion board postings from a formative online peer assessment exercise created for first-year UK undergraduate students. Online postings were the node of analysis used to identify patterns of language across online conversation. These postings were inductively analysed through manual content analysis. Subject’s responses were initially categorised using open coding. Findings Postings appeared to embody student’s discursive competence and information practice in IL, especially their level of information discernment and what constituted a quality “reference” for an assignment. However, they also demonstrated that the notion of “references” (information artefacts such as a journal article) perform a certain function in reproducing the discursive practices of an academic discipline as an agreed construct between tutor, student and librarian. Practical implications Students were engaged in the process of becoming good scholars by using appropriate online postings to create valid arguments through assessing other’s work, but what they did not do was question received meanings regarding the quality of information they used as evidence. Far from exhibiting the desired outcome of critical thinking (a cornerstone of IL) students who appeared most articulate in discussion tended to emulate the “strong discourse” put forward by their tutors and librarians. Originality/value This research uses practice architectures and discourse analysis to analyse students’ IL capabilities and the context in which they are developed. An approach not employed hitherto. This has practical implications for the ways in which academics and librarians introduce students to the academic discourse of their discipline and the ways in which the production, communication and exchange of information in academic contexts is characterised.

scholarly journals Modeling Student’s Academic Performance During Covid-19 Based on Classification in Support Vector Machine

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1798-1804
Author(s):  
Nor Ain Maisarah Samsudin, Et. al.
Keyword(s):  
Support Vector Machine ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Polynomial Kernel ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Linear Kernel ◽  
Grade Point ◽  
Before And After ◽  
And Mathematics

This study proposed a statistical investigate the pattern of students’ academic performance before and after online learning due to the Movement Control Order (MCO) during pandemic outbreak and a modelling students’ academic performance based on classification in Support Vector Machine (SVM). Data sample were taken from undergraduate students of Faculty of Science and Mathematics, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI). Student’s Grade Point Average (GPA) were obtained to developed model of academic performances during Covid-19 outbreak. The prediction model was used to predict the academic performances of university students when online classes was conducted. The algorithm of Support Vector Machine (SVM) was used to develop a model of students’ academic performance in university. For the Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm, there are two important parameters which are C (misclassification tolerance parameter) and epsilon  need to identify before proceed the further analysis. The parameters was applied to four different types of kernel which is linear kernel, radial basis function kernel, polynomial kernel and sigmoid kernel and the result was found that the best accuracy achieved by SVM are 73.68% by using linear kernel and the worst accuracy obtained from a sigmoid kernel which is 67.99% with parameter of misclassification tolerance C is 128 and epsilon is 0.6.

The nexus of teaching, research and practice: perceptions and expectations of undergraduate education students in Southeast Turkey

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yelena Smirnova ◽  
Bulent Dos
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Undergraduate Curriculum ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Teaching Research ◽  
Southeast Anatolia ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Perceptions And Expectations

PurposeThis study aims to explore the perceptions and expectations of the undergraduate students toward the teaching-research-practice nexus (TRPN) and propose a framework for the integration of nexus components at each undergraduate level. It also intends to identify whether students' views differ depending on their specialization, year of study, academic performance and gender.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative analysis was employed to evaluate the views of 460 undergraduate students from faculties of education in the Southeast Anatolia region of Turkey. The data were collected through the survey with a five-point Likert scale. A t-test and one-way ANOVA were used for the analysis of data.FindingsSignificant differences in the perceptions and expectations of the undergraduate students in relation to the TRPN suggest a gap in their satisfaction with the present teaching approach. The factors influencing students' perceptions include specialization, year of study and academic performance. Student expectations of the TRPN are affected by their specialization and GPA. The influence of gender was not confirmed.Research limitations/implicationsThe lack of previous research on the TRPN creates a need for further development in this area of study. The sample limited to education faculty in one region precludes generalization of the findings beyond the study setting.Practical implicationsThe present study provides preliminary information for education faculties on how to meet students' learning expectations through proportional integration of the TRPN components into the undergraduate curriculum.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the ongoing debate and scarce literature on the TRPN at the undergraduate level and proposes an original framework for linking teaching, research, and practice.

Being a student in the social media era: exploring educational affordances of an ePortfolio for managing academic performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 121-138
Author(s):  
Aikaterini Alexiou ◽  
Fotini Paraskeva
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Vocational Education And Training ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Instructional Designers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Self Regulated Learning ◽  
Regulated Learning ◽  
Practical Guidelines

PurposeUndergraduate students often find it difficult to organize their learning activities and manage their learning. Also, teachers need dynamic pedagogical frameworks and learning technologies for supporting learners to advance their academic performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of an ePortfolio intervention on self-regulated learning (SRL cognitive, affective, behavioral and contextual processes) and academic achievement.Design/methodology/approachFor the purposes of this study, an ePortfolio was designed and implemented based on SRL. The ePortfolio-based self-regulated learning approach (ePSRL) system encompasses the merits of a social networking platform and the functionalities of a learning management system. The participants were 123 university students (38 females and 85 males) at a computer science department. Students were randomly divided into two groups, the experimental and the control group.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that there is a significant increase of the means across SRL processes between the perceptions in the experimental and the control group. The implementation of the ePSRL approach as a learning module for undergraduate students could enable learners to manage their learning processes, transform their behavior into measurable learning outcomes and foster their academic performance.Originality/valueThis paper considers the importance of SRL and ePortfolios. Also, highlights the need of providing technology enhanced training courses and interventions to undergraduate students for supporting them to thrive during their academic studies. Thus, it proposes a set of educational affordances and practical guidelines that can be used by practitioners, instructional designers and educators in higher education as well as in vocational education and training institutions.

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