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 Table of Contents  
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Year : 2016  |  Volume : 2  |  Issue : 1  |  Page : 16-21

Assessment and comparison of influential factors in educational accomplishment of students in governmental, Azad and Payame Noor Universities


Department of Education, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Date of Web Publication25-Jan-2016

Correspondence Address:
Dr. Somayeh Daneshmandi
Department of Education, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran
Iran
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Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


DOI: 10.4103/2395-2296.174786

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  Abstract 

Aim: The main objective of this study is to evaluate and compare of factors affecting the educational accomplishment of students in governmental, Azad and Payame Noor Universities. Methodology: This study is a descriptive research and was conducted by using survey method. The statistical society contains all senior student of education at governmental, Azad and Payame Noor Universities and the statistical sample included 123 students selected by using stratified random sampling method. The tool for gathering data was questionnaire. The data gathered were analyzed by taking advantage of ANOVA, Freedman and least significant difference test. Results: The research findings showed that there is significance difference between universities in terms of intelligence and cognitive and institutional factors. Conclusion: The result shows that role of intelligence and cognitive factors between students of Azad University was higher than students of Payame Noor University, and the role of institutional factor was higher in governmental university than Payame Noor University. Furthermore, based on Friedman the motivational factor was placed in the first, and the institutional factor was placed in the last rank.

Keywords: Educational accomplishment, cognitive and intellectual factor, motivational factor, institutional factor, psychological factors, studentsAddress for Correspondence:


How to cite this article:
Mohammadi AM, Daneshmandi S. Assessment and comparison of influential factors in educational accomplishment of students in governmental, Azad and Payame Noor Universities. Int J Educ Psychol Res 2016;2:16-21

How to cite this URL:
Mohammadi AM, Daneshmandi S. Assessment and comparison of influential factors in educational accomplishment of students in governmental, Azad and Payame Noor Universities. Int J Educ Psychol Res [serial online] 2016 [cited 2024 Mar 19];2:16-21. Available from: https://www.ijeprjournal.org/text.asp?2016/2/1/16/174786


  Introduction Top


In today's world, it is of utmost importance to prepare and equip organizations' human resources, because these resources are the pivot and driving factor in dealing with increasing environmental and technological changes.[1] Any organization's human resources are the most valuable capital of each country and the country's cultural, economic, and social progress depends on the education of professional and skilled human forces, their scientific advancement and an increase in their level of awareness in society. Therefore, it is necessary that all the organizations, regardless of their mission, allocate most of their fund, time, and programing to all aspects of human development. The universities are the executive factor in the higher education, and therefore, play an influential role in developing human resources and are beyond any doubts in the main ground of providing human forces for progress, dealing with the demands and advancing our technological level.[2] Thus, concentrating on educating university students, who are any country's valuable scientific, cultural, and research assets are of high significance and one of the universities' major duties is to make a good plan which leads to their sufficient education and development.[3] Year after year, some fresh students enter the universities and some seniors graduate from them, and what is important in this continual circle is to attribute a special significance to the quality of education. We can then conclude that the quality assessment of the educational system, as the most effective factor in the development of any country.[4]

In other words, the most important feedback indicator in educating and the most important professional duty of an educational system is to help with the learners', educational development, and the success of each educational system is assessed based on the fact that to what extent it could fulfill this aim.[5]

One of the most important concerns in each educational system is the issue of success or failure. Educational success in each society is an indicator of the educational system's success in goal-finding and meeting individuals' demands. Therefore, an educational system is effective and successful only when the students' educational development in different periods is considered best.[6] In other words, without the students, universities and colleges are meaningless. The students are each educational institute's most important asset. Social and economic developments in each country are directly related to the learners' educational success. Educational success shapes successful graduates who can be the country's leaders and responsible for its economic and social development.[7]

Success refers to an action or reaction which brings the person to his/her aim, or refers to a certain step toward the goal. In the educational system, success refers to a degree of efficiency which the person acquires through his abilities and attempts. In other words, educational success refers to acquiring a range of abilities and skills during the education which guide people in different decision-makings and problem solving.[8]

A variety of studies have focused on the assessment of students' educational success and found different factors affecting their educational performance and success including social, psychological, economic, environmental, and individual factors. Though these factors can certainly affect the students' performance and success, the results can be different from person to person or country to country.[7]

Parkins argues that the educational success depends on the various factors including individual, social, educational, and psychological factors. Analyzing these factors and identifying the degree to which each one affects educational development leads to the determination of some strategies to acknowledge influential factors in educational success or failure. This will help educational policy-makers and planners to improve positive factors and eliminate the negative ones.[9]

Poor kazemi identifies the three factors in students' educational development and success in learning new things. These factors are as follows: General entrance behaviors (general intelligence, general talents), emotional entrance behaviors (interest, motivation, attitude toward learning, and learning new things), and cognitive entrance special behaviors (knowledge required for learning new lessons).[10]

Other researchers have offered different factors affecting educational success. For instance, Burton et al. attribute the students' educational success to some prior educational successes, personal factors, and learning approaches.[11] Corbonaro, Diaz and Eamon consider students' individual and motivational, social, economic, cultural, and family background, as well as institutional, gender, and other demographical factors as the most important ones in educational success.[12],[13],[14] Diaz also considered the students' motivation and attempts as important factors to start participating in educational and learning activities and adds that when the student is highly motivated, all his/her attempts are focused on a special goal.[15]

Angindmeer also regards familial factors such as family's educational level and parents' professions, family and environmental background, parents' social-economic status, and their support as the most important factors affecting students' educational success.[16]

Dupont and Osandon quoted from Yamani described the most important educational success and failure indicators as follows [17] (each of these factors includes their own subfactors):

  1. Cognitive and intellectual factors:
    • The act of learning
    • The art of knowing the time: Time for family, leisure, text, pleasure, travel, rest, relationships, study, development, creativity, and thinking
  2. Motivational factors:
    • The student's entrance status in academic life
    • The educational degree's symbolic value
  3. Institutional factors:
    • The life of academic cultures
    • Academic mechanics
  4. Psychological factors:
    • The others and I: The student's decision to relate to other academic system agents explains the student's successful entry and acceptance. The student's lack of official or nonofficial connections with information regarding the curriculum, discussions of course projects, misunderstandings, scientific and social structures of the university, and leads to the student's isolation.[17]


Yamni (2012) maintains that we can look at these factors in the academic ecosystem [Figure 1] so that we can let the outer environment play a part among affecting factors in the students' academic life.
Figure 1: Essential factors in assessing the student's academic success or failure

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According to above explanations, the main aim of the present study, the quality of assessment and comparison of influential factors affecting senior BA students' success or failure in educational sciences in governmental, Azad and Payame Nour Universities in Tehran. In order to meet this goal, the researcher has made use of four factors affecting success and failure suggested by Dupont and Osandon quoted from Yamani [17] and asked the following questions:

  • How is the students' academic success regarding the cognitive and intellectual factor?
  • How is the students' academic success regarding the motivational factor?
  • How is the students' academic success regarding the institutional factor?
  • How is the students' academic success regarding the psychological factor?



  Methodology Top


The present study has an applicable aim and is of descriptive nature. The corpus of the study includes the senior BA students of educational sciences in the fields of educational management and planning in governmental, Azad and Payame Nour Universities of Tehran [Table 1]. The sampling from this statistical community was done by using the table Krejcie and Morgan came up with for determining sample size for a given population. The sample size is comprised of 123 students out of a community of 190 students. In the next step, using random sampling, the number of samples in each category was determined.
Table 1: The community and the sample size

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A questionnaire was used in order to gather the necessary data and information by drawing upon Dupont and Osandon's study (1994) quoted from Yamani.[17] The questionnaire consists of 40 items in four categories based on Likert scale. Items 1–13 investigate the cognitive and intellectual factor, from item 14 to 25 question motivational factors, from 26 to 34 question institutional factor, and from 35 to 40 question psychological factor. The validity of the aforementioned instruments was approved by the experts, and the reliability of the research instruments was calculated using Cronbach's alpha as 0.81. Statistical methods of one-way variance analysis, follow-up tests, and Friedman nonparametric statistical test were used in order to analyze the data.

Findings

Demographic findings

Twelve percentage of the participants was men, and 88% of them were women. Eighty-two percentage of the participants was under 30-year-old, and 18% were over 30-year-old, which shows that the statistical community was rather young.

Inferential findings

Q1: How is the students' academic success regarding cognitive and intellectual factor?

According to the table [Table 2] and because F of the intergroup Azad University in cognitive and intellectual factor (4.49) is higher than F in governmental universities (3.07), we can say that this amount is significant at the level of = 0/05α. Therefore, we conclude that there is a significant difference in the students' answers regarding the cognitive and intellectual factor and the students of all three universities assess cognitive and intellectual factor positively in their success. Thus, in order to investigate the differences in this factor, least significant difference (LSD) follow-up study report was used [Table 2].
Table 2: The results of one-way variance analysis - comparative analysis of students' attitudes toward academic success regarding cognitive and intellectual factor

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According to the results [Table 3] and with regarding average difference (0.36298), the students attitude about the universities had a significance difference regarding cognitive and intellectual factor. From the average answers of the participants we concluded that, comparing to Payame Nour students, Azad University students think that cognitive and intellectual factor play a more important role in their academic success (with the significant level of 0.004).
Table 3: The results of LSD follow-up study report in comparing the students' answers regarding cognitive and intellectual factor

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Q2: How is the student's academic success regarding motivational factor?

According to the table [Table 4] and because F of the intergroup Azad university in motivational factor (2.28) is lower than F in governmental universities (3.07), we can say that this amount is not significant at the level of = 0/05α. Therefore, we conclude that, there is not a significant difference in the students' answers regarding the motivational factor.
Table 4: The results of one-way variance analysis in comparing the students' answers regarding the role of motivational factor in their academic success

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Q3: How is the students' academic success regarding institutional factor?

According to the table [Table 5] and because F of the intergroup Azad University in motivational factor (4.12) is higher than F in governmental universities (3.07), we can say that this amount is significant at the level of = 0/05α. Therefore, we conclude that, there is a significant difference in the students' answers regarding the institutional factor and the students of all three universities assess institutional factor positively in their success. Thus, in order to investigate the differences in this factor, LSD follow-up study report was used [Table 6].
Table 5: The results of one-way variance analysis in comparing the students' answers regarding the role of institutional factor in their academic success

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Table 6: The results of LSD follow-up study report in comparing the students' answers regarding institutional factor

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According to the results [Table 6] the students' attitude about the universities had a significance difference regarding institutional factor. From the average answers of the participants we concluded that, comparing to Payame Nour students, governmental university students think that institutional factor play a more important role in their academic success (with the significant level of 0.005).

Q4: How is the students' academic success regarding psychological factor?

According to the table [Table 7] and because F of the intergroup Azad University in psychological factor (0.10) is lower than F in governmental universities (3.07), we can say that this amount is not significant at the level of = 0/05α. Therefore, we conclude that, there is not a significant difference in the students' answers regarding the psychological factor.
Table 7: The results of one-way variance analysis in comparing the students' answers regarding the role of psychological factor in their academic success

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According to the above findings [Table 8] we can rank factors affecting the students' academic success (regardless of their universities) as follows:
Table 8: Priority of factors affecting the students' academic success

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As the above table shows, by drawing upon the results of Friedman nonparametric statistical test, we prioritized the factors affecting academic success and according to this prioritization they are as follows: Motivational, psychological, cognitive, and intellectual and institutional factor.


  Discussion and Conclusion Top


Success refers to an action or reaction which brings the person to his/her aim, or refers to a certain step toward the goal. In the educational system, success refers to a degree of efficiency which the person acquires through his abilities and attempts. By drawing on Dupont and Osandon's studies, the present research identified important factors affecting students' academic success considering their university and the findings of the research show that motivational factor is the most important factor affecting the students' academic success. Therefore, the findings of this research are in line with Poor kazemi's and Diaz's findings who both found motivation as an important factor.[10],[13] According to the findings of the present study, the second most important factor affecting the students' academic success is the psychological factor.[17] According to Dupont and Osandon quoted from Yamani,[17] this factor refers to the student's relations with others and his/her intellectual and personal abilities. The findings of the study in this regard confirm what Parkins', Poor kazemi's, Mushtaq, and Nawaz Khan's findings which all showed the influence of the psychological factor affecting the students' academic success.[7],[9],[13] According to Dupont and Osandon quoted from Yamani,[17] the third most important factor affecting the students' academic success is the cognitive and intellectual factor. This factor refers to what degree the student makes use of his/her intellectual and cognitive abilities for academic success. The fourth most important factor affecting the students' academic success in Dupont and Osandon's studies quoted from Yamani is the institutional factor.[17] The importance of this factor confirms what Angindmeer, Corbonaro, Diaz, and Eamon found in their studies.[12],[13],[14],[16]

In order to elaborate on the results, the findings were investigated in each university separately. The cognitive and intellectual factor has been assessed positively as one of the most important factors affecting the students' academic success. In fact, the way knowledge is communicated and the assignments are done, the method of evaluating students' knowledge, and the way time is spent for different activities are all among influential factors on the students' academic success and are affecting in different ways among the students of different universities. Of all the three kinds of universities we investigated, only the students of Azad University assessed this factor positively.

Though the motivational factor is one of most important factors affecting the students' academic success, the degree to which this factor affects the students was not much different among the students of different universities and they all asserted its importance (which is somehow due to the students' interest in their field of study, the role of the individual in choosing the field of study, and the uncertainties about the professional future of this field). This is because motivation can be the students' driving force toward academic success regardless of what university he/she studies at.

The institutional factor refers to the dominant culture in the society, university, and family; and also the ideal perspective of the university and the student's assessment of his/her academic status; thus, the students thought it important to their academic success. However, the governmental university students regard it as more influential in their academic success than other university students (which can be due to the higher social status of governmental university students compared to other students' social status).

In regards to the psychological factor which Dupont and Osandon quoted from Yamani consider important in students' academic success,[17] we are dealing with elements such as personal abilities and capabilities, intellectual abilities, personal characteristics; and according to the results, this factor did not affect the students of different universities in different ways which can be due to the students' natural and inner qualities which can be influential in their success regardless of what university they are studying at.

In general, we can conclude that among these three kinds of universities we examined, the students of Azad University considered the cognitive and intellectual factor as an important factor affecting their academic success. There was not a significant level of difference among their opinions regarding the motivational and psychological factors affecting their academic success. However, governmental university students considered the institutional factor more important in their academic success than the students at other universities.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

 
  References Top

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Diaz LA. Personal, family, and academic factors affecting low achievement in secondary school. Electron J Res Educ Psychol 2003;1:43-66.  Back to cited text no. 13
    
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Eamon MK. Social demographic, school, neighborhood and parenting influences on academic achievement of latino young adolescents. J Youth Adolesc 2005;34:163-75.  Back to cited text no. 14
    
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Mazharul Islam M. Factors influencing the academic performance of undergraduate students in Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. J Emerging Trends in Educ Res Policy Stud 2014;5:396-404.  Back to cited text no. 15
    
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    Figures

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    Tables

  [Table 1], [Table 2], [Table 3], [Table 4], [Table 5], [Table 6], [Table 7], [Table 8]



 

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