An Interplay of Oral and Written Communication and Performance of Undergraduates

Students' proper use of oral and written communication plays a vital role in elevating their performance at the higher education level. Therefore, this study was conducted to explore the interplay of these communication types with the performance of undergraduates. A five point Likert-type scale was administered on a sample of 540 Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan enrolled in the BS program of three faculties (Social Sciences, Sciences, and Languages). Students' performance was assessed by their CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) in previous semesters, further correlated with their communication skills. All respondents were selected from three semesters of the BS program from twelve departments whose total population was two thousand two hundred and twenty-nine. For the analysis of data, mean and standard deviation were used as descriptive statistics, while Pearson's Product Moment and one-way ANOVA were used as inferential statistics. After analysis, a statistically significant positive correlation between CGPA and written communication was revealed However, no statistically significant interplay was found between CGPA and oral communication. It was found that there is no statistically significant difference in mean scores of students of different faculties on oral and written communication. Keywords: Interplay, Oral, Written Communication, Performance, Undergraduates

Converting cumulative grade point average to an equivalent percentage value based on a fuzzy logic

The graduates who have finished their study program will be given a merit award and their award certificates will be graded in accordance with the degree of their academic accomplishment. The awards are generally offered using two methods; one is by the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) and the other is by the average percentage of all marks for the students. The problem is when assigning a course final grade; each student's final percentage is translated to a letter, allowing the discrepancy within the same letter grade range in the final ranking. If two students have the same final score, that means equal results. However, this equality can be false if one student hits a percentage of the highest grade, while the second student earns a percentage of the lowest grade of the same letter grade. This paper introduced a new equation that transforms between the awarded cumulative grade point average and the awarded percentage ranking based on fuzzy system. The proposed approach was tested using three actual benchmarks collected from three different colleges in Beni-Suef university. The obtained results reflects the effect of the fuzzy logic in helping converting form CGPA measures to percentage measure in educational systems.

The relationship between academic resilience and academic performance among pharmacy students

Objective: To evaluate academic resilience and investigate its relationship with academic performance among undergraduate pharmacy students. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among undergraduate pharmacy students in a public university in Malaysia using an adapted and pretested 16-item academic pharmacy resilience scale (APRS-16). Demographic and academic performance data were collected using an online self-administered questionnaire from December 2019 and January 2020 and analysed using descriptive and inferential analyses. Results: A total of 247 students completed the survey (response rate was 55.6%). Overall, the students had moderate academic resilience score (median: 59; interquartile range [IQR]: 37 – 80). Female students had significantly higher academic resilience score than males (60 [41 – 80] versus 56 [37 – 69]). Academic resilience score was higher among year one students (62 [42 – 74]) compared to year two (57.5 [37 – 80]), year three (59 [37 – 78]) and year four (58 [44 – 77]) students. There was a positive relationship between academic resilience score and students’ cumulative grade point average (CGPA) (r = 0.250) and GPA (r = 0.154). Conclusion: Undergraduate pharmacy students have moderate academic resilience. Academic resilience varies based on gender and year of study, and it is significantly associated with academic performance.

Association of BMI, Physical Activity with Academic Performance among Female Students of Health Colleges of King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia

Body mass index (BMI) is an indicator to detect weight category and known to influence the academic achievements of students. The present study assesses the association of BMI, physical activity with academic performance among undergraduate female students of health colleges, King Khalid University (KKU). Responses from 379 participants were analyzed in the study. Data collection was done by administering an online questionnaire using the university website portal. The questionnaire consists of two sections: the first section includes demographic information along with cumulative Grade point average (GPA) and another section rated student’s physical activity. A high frequency of respondents (53.6%) ranged within the normal BMI category. For academic performance, the majority (79.9%) of students reported high GPA scores with a mean of 4.28 ± 0.41. Upon correlation, academic performance was found negatively correlated with BMI at 0.0001 level of significance, and insignificantly correlated with physical activity. The present study observed that more than half of the respondents had normal BMI. An inverse relationship was observed between BMI and academic performance, showing participants within the normal BMI category achieved significantly higher GPA. In contrast, physical activity directly influenced the academic performance of the subjects. Therefore, the study suggests to enact counselling centers, health clubs in universities urging the students to adopt regular exercise and healthy lifestyle which could prepare them in achieving future endeavors.

PLUS – An Academic Mentorship Guide for Undergraduate Studies: A Preliminary Study

This paper introduces an approach to academic mentorship, named PLUS, that specifically assist students in their academic performance through personalised guidance. Through the guidance of a mentor, PLUS lets mentees evaluate their strength and weakness before setting their target to achieve for each subject. Based on this preliminary study with 23 computer science undergraduate students by measuring their academic performance using the cumulative grade point average (CGPA), students that are not introduced to PLUS tend to perform inconsistently throughout their undergraduate studies compared to those introduced to PLUS. Weaker students (CPGA <2.8) with face-to-face guidance with a mentor using the PLUS approach displayed constant improvement compared to those who did not have any mentor. Regardless of what stage of their undergraduate studies the students are introduced to PLUS, all the students that applied PLUS showed consistent improvement and agreed that the method is valid. PLUS, personalised guidance helps the mentor connect with the mentee better, a good complement to the digital education lacking in human connection. It warrants further investigation beyond this preliminary study.

A Quasiexperimental Analysis of First-Year Seminar Outcomes at a Large University

First-year seminars (FYS) comprise one of 11 researched interventions in postsecondary education known as High-Impact Practices, but few rigorous studies report significantly high impacts. This study examined a FYS employing propensity score matching to link cases and controls in a quasi-experimental design. One semester later cumulative grade point average (GPA), cumulative hours attempted, and 1-year later indicators (hours earned, hours attempted, and term GPA) were statistically different between the two groups. Three freshman survey items were also statistically significant and differences were observed within the same semester of the program. Quantitative differences did not appear immediately but appeared one term and 1 year later. Mean differences did not appear to diminish between groups over time. This analysis helps to fill a void in the paucity of studies clarifying the relationship between FYS participation and outcomes using comparison groups.

Evaluating Students’ Cyber Ethics Awareness in a Gender-Segregated Environment Under the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic

Cyber ethics are essential components of information technology. The COVID-19 situation has brought unprecedented challenges to traditional higher education institutions, especially for students using their electronic devices in all their learning activities. This study focused on cyber ethics perceptions among university undergraduates’ students during COVID-19 conditions. It aims to analyze the extent to which distinct attributes, such as gender, education level, grades, or Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA), and major are related to cyber ethics awareness. An online survey was conducted on a sample of 322 undergraduates studying Information Technology majors and other majors to assess university students' cyber ethics awareness levels at a University in the UAE. The results show that, in general, respondents were aware of cyber ethics. In particular, gender and education level were found to directly affect cyber ethics awareness, while major and grades have no statistically significant effect.

Impact of Socio-economic Factors on Undergraduate Students’ Academic Performance in Bangladesh: A Case Study at Social Science Faculty, University of Dhaka

This study attempts to identify the potential impacts of socio-economic factors on undergraduate students’ academic performance in Bangladesh. In this study, cross-sectional primary data have been collected from 300 randomly selected undergraduate students of the Social Science faculty, University of Dhaka. Among them, 164 are male students and 136 are female students. Sample students have been selected randomly through a simple random sampling method and a structured questionnaire containing both closed and open-ended questions has been used to collect data. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) model is used to find out the impacts of all these socio-economic variables on undergraduate students’ academic performance or CGPA (Cumulative grade point average). The OLS estimation technique is used for estimating slope coefficients of independent variables. The main findings of this study show that class attendance, study hour, previous academic results, university admission test scores, family income, father’s education, mother’s education, and group study have a positive and significant impact on under-graduate students’ CGPA (Cumulative grade point average). And the dummy variables of gender, participation of part time-job, and extra-curriculum activities have a negative impact on CGPA. By analyzing the findings of this paper, it can be concluded that the academic performance of undergraduate students can be improved by motivating students about their regular class attendance and per day study hours, providing strong educational basement at the school and college level, providing free adult education, giving financial support to the students of a poor family, ensuring ICT based education system and free internet access for both teachers and students.

Predicting Undergraduate Level Students’ Performance Using Regression

Students’ academic performance in the university environment changes from one academic year to another as they climb up the ladder of their academic programme. Predicting students’ academic performance in higher educational institutions is challenging due to the lack of a central database of students’ performance records. The other challenge is the lack of standard methods for predicting students’ performance and other moderating factors like physical, economic and health that affect students’ progress. In this work, we predicted students’ performance based on previous academic results. A model to predict students’ performance based on their Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) was developed using Linear Regression Algorithm. A dataset of 70 undergraduate students studying Computer Science was analyzed and the results show that the model was able to predict the 4th year CGPA of the Students using the previous Cumulative Grade Point of the past three years with an accuracy of 87.84%, and a correlation of 0.9338. This study also identified students’ second semester CGPA in the first year and their first semester CGPA in the second year as the most important CGPAs that affect the accuracy

Cumulative Grade Point Average and Comprehensive Examination Results as Predictors of Certified Public Accountant Board Examinees’ Performance

The Certified Public Accountant Licensure Examinations among BS Accountancy graduates can be considered as the culminating direct measure on how an accountancy retention policy program in a school prepares students to becoming CPAs. This study is aimed to gauge how cumulative qualifying grade point average of a student from first year to fifth year college and the fifth year comprehensive exams serve as predictors for the CPA Board Exams for a university in Central Luzon, Philippines. To measure the quality of the predictors, October examinees from the graduating batch were the focus of the study. With five hundred fifty three (553) BS Accountancy coming from five alumni batches, three hundred fifty eight (358) passed, fifty five (55) are conditioned and one hundred twenty (120) have failed during the first take of comprehensive exams. Auditing theory, business law and taxation are the most difficult subjects with less than two thirds (< 2/3) of the first takers as passing the said subjects. Those with a CGPA of 1.554 or higher in the undergrad, finishing with latin honors have the highest probability of passing the board. A range of four percent (either -4% to +4%) serves as the average variance between fifth year comprehensive exams and board examination performance for all first takers. Both the CGPA (r=0.632) and comprehensive examinations (r=0.745) are moderate predictors of the board examinations which imply that the accountancy program for the university can still be improved to further prepare the students to become CPAs.