Identification of Important Factors Influencing the Performance of Engineering Students in University Examination: A Systematic Approach

 

Radheshyam H. Gajghat¹*, Dr. Chandrahas C. Handa², Dr. Rakesh L. Himte³

¹Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, K.D.K. Collage of Engg. & Tech.,

Nagpur – 440 009, India.

²Professor & Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering, K.D.K. Collage of Engg. & Tech.,

Nagpur – 440 009, India.

³Professor & Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Priyadarshini Institute of Engg. & Tech.,

Nagpur – 440 019, India.

 

ABSTRACT:

In the previous research, it was proved that there were so many factors like students’ personal characteristics, learning habits, previous academic background, family background, college environment etc. which influence directly or indirectly the students’ performance in their university examination. In this paper the numbers of such factors have been identified by studying the previous work carried out by different researchers in different geographical areas and boundaries of the world. Also the opinions of the students and teaching faculties have been considered to explore more relevant factors. More than 200 influencing factors were identified, out of which only 75 factors were shortlisted in consultation with the experts. A preliminary survey was conducted to know the importance of these factors in the success or failure of students in university examination. 119 students and 72 teaching faculties have participated in this survey. The collected data was further analyzed by using different statistical tools such as descriptive analysis, independent t-test, one way ANOVA with the help of SPSS Statistics 20, a statistical software package. Finally 22 important influencing factors have been identified by using results of statistical analyses and discussions with experts. These identified factors were used to design a questionnaire to formulate the model to correlate students’ performance in university examination. 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

The country has seen the quantitative growth of engineering colleges at diploma, degree and postgraduate level during last decade, mostly a phenomenal growth in number of engineering students. This has created opportunity for 12^th Class students with lower scores to take admission to engineering courses, there by affecting the results. The poor result has also adversely affected the placement [1].

 

As such now result of students is the highest concern of engineering education system. There are certain factors which have significant impact on the performance and results of students, like students’ personal characteristics, learning habits, previous academic background, family background, college environment etc. The previous studies proved that students’ university results can be improved by predicting the influencing factors which affect their academic performance. Already there are so many models which have been developed to predict student success and failure at the university level. Most of the studies were focused on students’ performance in the overseas universities, which may not be suitable for Indian universities due to the differences in their academic, social and cultural environment. So there was a need to develop such a model which will be more suitable for the students of Indian universities [2].

In most of the models semester/cumulative grade point average (SGPA/CGPA) and success/failure in the university examination was taken as the performance variable. Pre-academic background, family background, personal characteristics, college environment, learning habits and many more were considered as influencing factors for predicting the students’ performance at university level. In this work, a number of papers in the related area have been studied and the most important factors which influence the students’ performance were identified. These factors were further used to design a questionnaire for formulation of the statistical model.

 

OBJECTIVE OF RESEARCH WORK:           
The objective of research work was to identify the important factors which influence the students’ performance in university examination. Factors were identified by exhaustive literature survey, considerations of opinions of students and teaching faculties and discussions with experts. Statistical tools were used to predict and authenticate the relevance of the factors. These factors were further used to formulate the model to predict the students’ performance.

 

STEPS FOR IDENTIFICATION OF IMPORTANT FACTORS:    
For designing the predictive model, a number of influencing factors were identified from the previous research. These factors include students’ personal characteristics, their learning habits, previous academic background, family background and college environment etc. But these factors were not sufficient to design a good predictive model so the opinions of the students and teaching faculties were taken and a due weightage was given to experts’ views for preparation of final list of important factors.

 

Collection of Factors:    
An exhaustive literature survey was carried out to identify the significant influencing factors. In this survey, 114 significant influencing and 10 performing factors were identified.  To add more factors, the opinions of 79 students and 19 senior and experienced faculties were taken. 90 influencing factors were identified by this process. After this, a comprehensive list of influencing and performance factors was prepared. This list includes 204 influencing and 10 performing factors. There were some similar and less important factors. Similar factors were merged together and less important factors were eliminated from the list in consultation with the experts. Table 1 show a list of 48 significant influencing factors [3, 4] shortlisted from the previous research work and table 2 shows a list of 40 influencing factors shortlisted from the list, suggested by the students and faculties.

 

Semester/Cumulative Grade Point Average (SGPA/CGPA), Success/Failure in the examination, Relative Retention Rate, Time to Graduation and Marks Obtained in End Semester Exam were identified [4] as performing factors from the previous research and the list, suggested by the students and teaching faculties.

 

 

Table 1: Summary of Significant Influencing Factors identified in Previous Research

 

Table 2: Summary of Influencing Factors suggested by Students and Teaching Faculties

Sr. No.	Influencing Factors	Sr. No.	Influencing Factors
1	Medium of Instruction in HSC (12th Class)	21	Revision at the last moment
2	Board of Examination	22	Positive/Negative Attitude
3	Aggregate Percentages in SSC (10th Class)	23	High expectations by Teachers
4	Combined Percentages in Phy, Chem, Maths (12th Class)	24	Too much reliance on Teachers
5	Percentages in Maths in SSC (10th Class) only	25	Students' Regular Counselling
6	Percentages in English HSC (12th Class) only	26	Laziness
7	Parents' Occupation	27	Seriousness in CTs/UTs/Performance in Internal exams
8	Working Parents	28	Not Referring books/Depended only on class notes
9	Numerical Problem Solving ability	29	Uncertainty about future
10	Teachers Experience	30	Fear of failures
11	Availability of good study material/learning resources	31	Willingness to accept a challenge
12	Positive influence of Friend/Friends help	32	Late night study
13	Self-confidence	33	Balance between academic commitment & social life
14	Self-esteem	34	Prefer to sit at Front/Back
15	Self-assessment	35	Career preference (Govt./Pvt./Own Business)
16	Competitiveness	36	Not fixing the target
17	Persistence	37	Handwriting
18	Concentration on study	38	Consistency in study
19	Presentation of answer in exam	39	Ability to work independently
20	Utilization of weekly off	40	Syllabus coverage

 

Questionnaire Design:   
The significant influencing factors identified in previous research and suggested by the students and teaching faculties were combined together. Some of the similar factors were merged and finally a list of 75 influencing factors was prepared as shown in table 3. The questionnaire survey methodology was adopted for this research study and a questionnaire was prepared accordingly. The first section of the questionnaire included the personal details of the participants and the second section included 75 influencing and 5 performing factors as discussed above. Respondents were asked to mark the correct option on 5 degrees Linkert scale [5] as per the importance of the factors they think. The most important factor was marked as 5 and least important as 1.

 

Table 3: Combined List of Identified Influencing Factors

Sr. No.	Influencing Factors	Sr. No.	Influencing Factors
1	Caste Category	39	Self-esteem
2	Medium of Instruction in HSC (12th Class)	40	Self-assessment
3	Board of Examination	41	Competitiveness
4	Aggregate Percentages in SSC (10th Class)	42	Persistence
5	Aggregate Percentages in HSC (12th Class)	43	Concentration on study
6	Combined Percentages in Phy, Chem, Maths (HSC)	44	Presentation of answer in exam
7	Percentages in Maths (HSC) only	45	Utilization of weekly off
8	Percentages in Maths (SSC) only	46	Hardworking
9	Percentages in English (HSC) only	47	Revision at the last moment
10	Entrance Exam/CGPET Score/Rank	48	Academic environment of college
11	Living location/Location of School	49	Positive/Negative Attitude
12	Father's Education	50	High expectations by Teachers
13	Mother's Education	51	Habit to get clear doubts by Teachers/Interaction
14	Father's Occupation	52	Too much reliance on Teachers
15	Mother's Occupation	53	Students' Regular Counselling
16	Working Parents	54	Laziness
17	Financially Condition of Family	55	Seriousness in CTs/UTs/Performance in Internal exams
18	Admission taken due to own/others interest	56	Not Referring books/Depended only on class notes
19	No. of dependent on your parents/No. of siblings	57	Uncertainty about future
20	Class Attendance in %	58	Fear of failures
21	Sincere Preparation of Class Notes	59	Excessive use of internet/ cell phones
22	Self study/Regular Study at Home	60	Willingness to accept a challenge
23	Group study	61	Late night study
24	Stay during Engg.	62	Sufficient Sleep
25	Time Management	63	Participation in cultural/sports/co-curriculum activities
26	Active Participation in Class Discussion	64	Balance between academic commitment & social life
27	Numerical Problem Solving ability	65	Prefer to sit at Front/Back
28	Teacher's Support/Appreciation/Inspiration & Help	66	Career preference (Govt./Pvt./Own Business)
29	Teacher's Job Satisfaction	67	Dedication to career goal
30	Teachers Experience	68	Fixing the target
31	Written communication skill in English	69	Handwriting
32	Availability of good study material/learning resources	70	Desire to learn/acquire more knowledge
33	Family Support	71	Consistency in study
34	Seniors' support & Help/Interaction with seniors	72	Ability to work independently
35	Influence of Friend/Friends help	73	Assignment submission/continuous assessment
36	Self-confidence	74	Ability to manage stress
37	Self-motivation	75	Syllabus coverage
38	Self-discipline

 

 

Data Collection:              
A preliminary survey was carried out to identify the important factors. Respondents were the students of all semesters and teaching faculties of the different engineering colleges of Chhattisgarh affiliated to Chhattisgarh Swami Vivekananda University, Bhilai. All the completely filled 191 questionnaires which included responses of 119 students and 72 teaching faculties, were collected and data were tabulated in the excel sheet. 

 

Elimination of outliers by using control chart:    
The outliers were removed by using statistical quality control tool,  and R control chart [6]. After eliminating the outliers, 138 combined (students and faculties) samples left as shown in figure 1 for further analysis.

 

Figure 1:   and R control chart for elimination of outliers Data Analysis

 

The remaining combined data of 138 participants were analyzed by using different statistical tools like descriptive analysis, independent t-test, one way ANOVA in SPSS Statistics 20. 

 

Reliability of the sample:             
Cronbach’s Alpha is used to measure the reliability of the sample. This measure shows the internal consistency of a multiple item scale. Alpha is typically used when there are several Likert type items that are summed to make a composite score or summated scale. Alpha is based on the mean or average correlation of each item in the scale with every other item. In general, Cronbach’s alpha based on un-standardized items is used, unless the items in the scale have quite different means and standard deviations [7]. The value of alpha should be positive and usually greater than 0.7 in order to provide good support for internal consistency and reliability [8]. A very high alpha (e.g., greater than 0.90) probably indicates that the items are repetitious or there are more items in the scale than are really necessary for a reliable measure of the concept [7]. The Reliability statistics in table 4 shows the value of Cronbach’s Alpha (0.757) and Cronbach’s alpha based on standardized items (0.769), both values were greater than 0.7, indicates good support for internal consistency and reliability of the collected data.  

 

Table 4: Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha	Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items	No of Items
0.757	0.769	75

 

Sample Adequacy and Sphericity Test:   
The Kaiser-Meyer-OIkin (KMO) measure should be greater than 0.70, and is inadequate if less than 0.50 [8]. The KMO test checks the adequacy of data. Table 5 shows KMO (0.547) which was not sufficient for good adequacy of data. But this KMO value was accepted because it was greater than 0.5. The Bartlett’s test should be significant (i.e. a significance value should be less than 0.05); this implies that the variables are correlated highly enough to provide a reasonable basis for further analysis [7]. Table 5 shows Bartlett’s test as significance (p = 0.000) which was acceptable. Therefore the data was found to be fit for further analysis.

 

Table 5: KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		0.547
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	5976.461
	df	2775
	Sig.	0.000

 

Identification of Important Influencing Factors:
Descriptive analysis was used to compute the means and standard deviation of the factors [9]. The ranking of the factors was done based on the mean score. Wherever the mean was found to be same, the standard deviation was taken into account and the factor with a lower value of standard deviation was given a higher rank [10]. Considering combined ranking, the standard deviation and experts’ opinion, 22 influencing factors were identified as important factors as shown in Table 6. Independent t-test and One Way ANOVA were used to check the significance of the difference of the opinions between students and teaching faculties.  The independent t-test, which is also called the two sample t-test or student's t-test, is an inferential statistical test that determines whether there is a statistically significant difference between the means of two independent groups. One way ANOVA compares the means of the samples or groups in order to make inferences about the population mean. It is also called single factor analysis of variance because there is only one independent variable or factor [8]. Table 6 shows the results of independent t-test and One Way ANOVA at 95 % confidence level. There was no significant difference between the opinions of students and faculties for 17 factors out of 22 factors (i.e. 77.27 %). So for most of the factors the students and faculties were having same opinion. The significant difference for remaining 5 influencing factors may be due to generation gap between students and teaching faculties. Similarly Pass/Fail and Aggregate Percentages in university examination were identified as important performing factors. For simplification of model formulation, 22 factors were further grouped into 4 categories as per their similarities as shown in Table 7. These groups were named as personal factors, pre-admission factors, institutional factors and self-learning factors.

 

Table 6: List of Identified Important Influencing Factors

Sr No	Influencing Factors	Stud. Ave	Facul. Ave	Std. Devi.	Ave (SandF)	Signi. If   | t | > 1.96	Signi Y/N	Signi If p < 0.05	Signi Y/N
1	Time Management Skill	4.558	4.615	0.040	4.580	-0.443	N	0.658	N
2	Self and Regular Study at Home	4.570	4.481	0.063	4.536	0.574	N	0.567	N
3	Numerical Problem Solving ability	4.523	4.404	0.084	4.478	0.934	N	0.352	N
4	Family Support and Financial Condition	4.570	3.962	0.430	4.341	4.601	Y	0.000	Y
5	Concentration on study	4.360	4.288	0.051	4.333	0.418	N	0.676	N
6	Written communication skill in English	4.326	4.135	0.135	4.254	1.329	N	0.186	N
7	Lack of Revision at the last moment	4.326	4.135	0.135	4.254	1.125	N	0.262	N
8	Self-motivation	4.163	4.308	0.103	4.217	-0.778	N	0.438	N
9	Positive/Negative Attitude	4.093	4.327	0.165	4.181	-1.402	N	0.163	N
10	Academic environment of college	4.070	4.308	0.168	4.159	-1.426	N	0.156	N
11	Active Participation in Class Discussion	4.070	4.212	0.100	4.123	-0.800	N	0.425	N
12	Hardworking/Efforts	3.977	4.173	0.139	4.051	-0.979	N	0.330	N
13	Dedication to career goal	4.047	4.038	0.006	4.043	0.041	N	0.968	N
14	Seriousness in CTs/UTs/Performance in Internal Exams	3.919	4.212	0.207	4.029	-1.495	N	0.137	N
15	Ability to manage stress	3.942	3.981	0.028	3.957	-0.223	N	0.824	N
16	Attendance in %/Regular/Irregular	3.709	4.346	0.450	3.949	-3.071	Y	0.003	Y
17	Combined Percentages in Phy, Chem, Maths (12th Class)	3.244	4.115	0.616	3.572	-3.837	Y	0.000	Y
18	Excessive use of internet/ cell phones	3.349	3.904	0.392	3.558	-2.440	Y	0.016	Y
19	Live in/with (Hostel/Rented/Family/Relatives)	3.442	3.365	0.054	3.413	0.361	N	0.718	N
20	CGPET Score/Rank	2.965	3.692	0.514	3.239	-2.896	Y	0.004	Y
21	Examination Board (State Board/CBSE/ICSE/Other)	2.965	2.962	0.002	2.964	0.016	N	0.987	N
22	Location of School (Rural/Urban/Metro)	2.872	2.923	0.036	2.891	-0.209	N	0.834	N

 

 

Table 7: List of Identified Important Influencing Factors Grouped in Four Categories

 

CONCLUSION:
The approach discussed in this paper is a systematic and scientific approach to scrutinize the most important and relevant factors for the study when there are too many factors in the research. This approach covers all the important concerns in this type of research like questionnaire design, collection and filtration of data, reliability and adequacy test of sample, identification of important factors and grouping of important factors based on their similarities. Finally 22 important factors were identified which influence the performance of engineering students in university examination. Also 2 important performing factors were identified to measure the performance of engineering students. The various statistical tools like descriptive analysis, independent t-test, one way ANOVA were used in this research work.

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:       
The authors would like to acknowledge the help and kind support extended by the management of different engineering colleges of Chhattisgarh affiliated to Chhattisgarh Swami Vivekananda Technical University, Bhilai. The authors also wish to express their gratitude to all the teaching faculties and students for their cooperation during data collection for identification of important factors which influence the performance of engineering students at university level.      

 

REFERENCES:

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Received on 09.05.2017                             Accepted on 18.08.2017

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