Studies in Higher Education

ISSN: 0307-5079 (Print) 1470-174X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cshe20

The determinants of academic performance:

evidence from a Cambodian University

Seng Sothan

To cite this article: Seng Sothan (2018): The determinants of academic performance: evidence
from a Cambodian University, Studies in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2018.1496408

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1496408

Published online: 17 Jul 2018.

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STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1496408

The determinants of academic performance: evidence from a

Cambodian University
Seng Sothan
College of Business Management, Life University, Sihanoukville, Cambodia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Internationally, there has been considerable literature on the predictors of Academic performance;
academic performance in higher education. However, the empirical Cambodian higher education;
findings are still limited in Cambodia; therefore, this paper was family factors; personal
conducted to examine the determinants of academic performance of factors; school factors
329 undergraduate students selected from a university in Cambodia.
Based on the findings from the multivariate regression analysis, a
number of variables, namely high school grade, English ability, class
attendance, study effort, academic self-efficacy, and family socio-
economic status were found to be positively associated with academic
performance. Term-time employment and family size had an adverse
impact on academic performance. However, there was no sufficient
evidence to indicate age, gender, household location, parental
education, parental involvement, and teaching evaluation to have
predictive power on academic performance. Hence, the study concluded
that the personal backgrounds played the potential role in predicting
academic performance of undergraduate students.

Introduction
Development cannot be achieved without enhanced human capital, which is mainly promoted
through education whose benefits are widely seen around the globe and divided into two important
levels. At the micro level, education is associated with the well-being and opportunities for a better
living standard of each individual through its contributions to improvement in their productivity,
suggesting that those who have received a higher education tend to have more economic and
social opportunities than those who have obtained less education. However, gaining knowledge
and skills through education is not a simple task; it is a long and challenging journey in life. At the
macro level, education positively contributes to economic development via building human
capital, which has been accepted as an engine of economic growth across countries (Romer 1990;
Breton 2015; Teixeira and Queirós 2016). In addition, human capital is a key input into R&D develop-
ment and improves labor productivity (Cinnirella and Streb 2017). Hence, to enhance human capital,
quality education is the prerequisite and should be promoted (Owings, Kaplan, and Pirim 2012; Tanz-
harikova 2012).
Schools are very concerned about quality education that is provided to their students, leading to
an increase in school effort and commitment to improve student learning through formulating
various policies and programs that help in promoting academic performance. The idea is that
when students perform well at school, it is a signal to indicate high performance of school as well.
Another important signal is when students perform well at school, it is the indication of enhanced
competence that they need for future career planning and preparation after graduation. However,

CONTACT Seng Sothan sothans@yahoo.com

© 2018 Society for Research into Higher Education
2 S. SOTHAN

school alone is not enough. Empirical literature shows that academic performance is influenced by
other factors, including personal and family ones. Educators and researchers in the field of education
have illustrated a number of personal factors that influence academic performance, including gender,
age, class attendance (Andrietti 2014), academic self-efficacy (Feldman and Kubota 2015), employ-
ment (Hovdhaugen 2015), high school grade (Danilowicz-Gösele et al. 2017), study effort (Andrietti
and Velasco 2015), English ability (Sadeghi et al. 2013), etc. In addition, other exogenous factors,
including parental involvement, parental education, family socio-economic status (De Paola and
Gioia 2017), school resources, and teaching skills (Muntaner-Mas et al. 2017) have a link with the aca-
demic performance of students in higher education as well. However, there are no common findings
on the impact of these variables on academic performance; the controversy can be attributed to
different estimation methods, data measurements, data quality, or the context of each study.
Internationally, there has been extensive empirical literature on the determinants of academic per-
formance at the tertiary level, but in Cambodia, the findings are still limited. Particularly, it is not
known which factors have predictive power on the academic performance of undergraduate stu-
dents in Cambodia. Furthermore, the Cambodian educational context might be different from
other countries; hence, the use of findings from these countries will produce difficulties and problems
along the way for decision making in Cambodia because what is empirically found in other countries
may not fit Cambodian context. Due to the insufficiency of data or findings on the factors affecting
academic performance in the country’s higher education, the present research was conducted to
examine the determinants of academic performance of undergraduate students selected from a uni-
versity in Cambodia based on the multivariate regression technique for estimations.

Literature review
There has been wide-ranging empirical literature on the predictors of academic performance at all
levels from the primary to the tertiary education. As illuminated in literature, the predictors of aca-
demic performance have generally been classified as personal, family, and school factors. Some
even argued that peers also affected student performance (Dancer, Morrison, and Tarr 2015; Hill
2017).
Focusing on the personal factors, age is one of the variables whose impact on academic perform-
ance has been investigated to a large extent. Age was found to have a significant impact on academic
performance with younger students doing better than older ones (Da Wan and Cheo 2012; Nyikahad-
zoi et al. 2013). Some researchers argued that older students performed better than younger ones
(Guney 2009; Alhajraf and Alasfour 2014; Kim et al. 2016). In contrast, others did not support the
view that age influenced academic performance of students in higher education (Duff 2004; Roch-
ford, Connolly, and Drennan 2009; Ebenuwa-Okoh 2010). As one of the personal factors, the
impact of gender on student performance has also been examined (Kaighobadi and Allen 2008;
Cotti et al. 2013). For example, empirical research has suggested that there is a gap between the
achievement of male and female students with females showing better performance than their
male counterparts in certain instances (Alfan and Othman 2005; Kaighobadi and Allen 2008) and
some argued that male students had significantly higher performance than their female counterparts
(Koh and Koh 1999; Alyoussef, Amirthalingam, and Mohammed 2016). However, other researchers
suggested a weak gender gap in academic performance between male and female undergraduate
students (Arnold and Rowaan 2014). In some studies, gender did not exert a significant impact on
academic performance in higher education (Guney 2009; Andrietti 2014).
As a key component in social cognitive theory, self-efficacy was defined as the perceived compe-
tence of an individual to succeed at or accomplish a particular task (Bandura 1977, 1997), meaning
that academic self-efficacy refers to students’ beliefs about their academic competence. Ample litera-
ture has indicated academic self-efficacy to be a predictor of academic performance (e.g. Balkis 2011;
Krumrei-Mancuso et al. 2013; Feldman and Kubota 2015), indicating that the students who have more
confidence in their ability report a high performance level (Komarraju and Nadler 2013). Other
 STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION 3

researchers also accepted academic self-efficacy as a significant predictor of academic performance

via exerting its positive impact on effort (Li 2012), motivation (Komarraju and Nadler 2013), and per-
sistence (Skaalvik, Federici, and Klassen 2015), which are the main determinants of student perform-
ance (Wright, Jenkins-Guarnieri, and Murdock 2013; Andrietti and Velasco 2015). According to the
findings obtained from a meta-analysis of Robbins et al. (2004) on the impact of psychosocial and
study skill factors on student performance, they found academic self-efficacy to be the best predictor
of student performance. However, based on a cluster analysis, Galyon et al. (2012) classified academic
self-efficacy into three levels, namely high, medium, and low. Galyon’s findings reported that all the
three levels had predictive power on student performance. Focusing on the GPA levels, Galyon
asserted academic self-efficacy to be most strongly associated with exam performance at the
highest GPA level and least at the lowest GPA level.
Study effort is also one of the psychological factors affecting student learning. The variable refers
to the amount of time a student spends on his or her study outside class sessions. Some researchers
have claimed effort to be a key determinant of academic performance (Johnson, Joyce, and Sen 2002;
Grave 2011; Andrietti and Velasco 2015). For example, based on a stochastic frontier production func-
tion, Dolton, Marcenaro, and Navarro (2003) emphasized both formal study and self-study to have a
positive impact on exam scores although the time spent on lectures was indicated to be more pro-
ductive than the time spent on self-study. Most recently, De Paola and Gioia (2017) stressed that
impatient students perceived a lower value to the future benefits of their investment; therefore,
they put less effort into their study, which later led to a low performance at school. Based on the
above discussions, effort is an important predictor of academic performance. However, in some
cases, the positive impact of effort is not corroborated (e.g. Schuman et al. 1985; Hill 1990; Stanca
2006; Guney 2009; Torenbeek, Jansen, and Suhre 2013). Recently, Kusurkar et al. (2013) examined
the impact of motivation and effort on the academic performance of students from a medical
school in the Netherlands by employing a correlational method. They found motivation, but not
study effort to be positively and significantly associated with student performance. Effort cannot con-
tribute to improvement in grades unless the quality of time spent on study is guaranteed (Plant et al.
2005), meaning that if any student does not spend more actual time on study, they are not likely able
to enhance their performance at school because the time spent is not wisely used for the benefits of
their study. From the above discussions, the findings on the impact of study effort on student learn-
ing are still inconclusive.
Turning to class attendance, the variable has been widely accepted as one of the most important
predictors of academic performance for all levels of education (Dolton, Marcenaro, and Navarro
2003). Romer (1993) conducted a widely cited study on the impact of class attendance on the aca-
demic performance of students in the United States. The author found class attendance to be predic-
tive of academic performance. In the study, Romer even suggested that mandatory class attendance
should be considered. Later, Dolton, Marcenaro, and Navarro (2003) examined the impact of attend-
ance and study effort on student learning and found class attendance to be the best predictor of aca-
demic performance. The positive impact of attendance is also supported by a number of studies (e.g.
Chen and Lin 2008; Clark et al. 2011; Hwang 2013; Andrietti 2014; Mearman et al. 2014; Andrietti and
Velasco 2015). Based on the above discussions, any student who is often absent tends to perform
lower than those who attend class regularly (Pani and Kishore 2016).
English proficiency level, a proxy for English ability, is also a concern in many higher education
institutions. Hence, these institutions employ IELTS or TOEFL scores as the university entrance
requirements (Woodrow 2006). The idea is that the lack of English ability might cause challenges
to many students during their studies at university. Some researchers have empirically claimed
English ability to be positively correlated with academic performance. For example, Stephen,
Welman, and Jordaan (2004) investigated the impact of English ability on the academic success of
first-year black and Indian students. They found a positive association between English ability and
academic success. Later, Kerstjens and Nery (2000), Feast (2002), Fakeye and Ogunsiji (2009), and
Sadeghi et al. (2013) supported the same view. However, others argued that English ability was
4 S. SOTHAN

not the only predictor of academic performance (Graham 1987). In 2011, Avdi found its impact to be
weak compared to other non-linguistic factors. They even suggested that English ability was not the
most critical predictor of academic performance.
Although many students view that term-time employment helps in their financial needs (Hunt,
Lincoln, and Walker 2004), it is of great concern to many educators and educational policy makers
due to its restrictions on academic performance as a result of high chances of missed lectures and
late submission of assignments (Curtis and Shani 2002). Some even argued that employment
during term time restricted students’ participation in various extra-curricular activities, including
group activities and career planning and preparation (Greenbank, Hepworth, and Mercer 2009).
Aside from its impact on academic performance, term-time employment can produce high
dropout rates during college life. For example, according to Hovdhaugen (2015), the students who
worked full-time during their full-time study were less likely to complete their program than those
working part-time or not working at all. In contrast, Wang et al. (2010) acclaimed part-time employ-
ment to be uncorrelated with academic performance. They suggested that part-time employment
could contribute to students’ school life and increase their social networks. Furthermore, Rochford,
Connolly, and Drennan (2009) found that the students who worked greater hours reported negative
outcomes, however, implying that if the employment was related to students’ course of study, it
would provide benefits to them.
Focusing on high school grade, its impact on academic performance has also been tremendously
explored. Many universities around the globe have focused much on admission policies, aiming to
recruit qualified students to attend their academic programs. However, one of the requirements is
high school grade because they believe that high school grade is a good measurement of past aca-
demic performance during high school life. High school grade has been asserted as one of the main
variables predicting academic performance of students in higher education. For example, using the
least squares dummy variable model and the hierarchical linear model, Cyrenne and Chan (2012)
found high school grade to be an important predictor of academic performance. The same finding
was also found by other researchers (e.g. Chemers, Hu, and Garcia 2001; Torenbeek, Jansen, and
Suhre 2013; Andrietti 2014). Most recently, Danilowicz-Gösele et al. (2017) examined the determi-
nants of students’ success at a German university and found high school grade to be highly correlated
with both graduation probabilities and final grades.
Turning to family factors, the findings from previous empirical studies showed that family back-
grounds were important in a student’s life both inside and outside the classroom. Among the
family backgrounds, family support plays a crucial role in students’ academic life. Román, Cuestas,
and Fenollar (2008) examined the link between family support and academic achievement for 553
students from a Spanish university based on a correlational method. They found family support to
be positively associated with university students’ learning and achievement. However, family
support can be seen in the form of financial support. To gain access to higher education, family
financial support is the prerequisite (Walpole 2003; Sánchez and Singh 2018). From the above discus-
sions, family support is asserted to be important in student learning. For instance, any student who
comes from families with sufficient economic resources is likely to gain college admission, enroll in
college, and earn a bachelor’s degree (Bayer 1968; Manski 1992; Perna and Titus 2005). Most recently,
Matsuoka (2015) suggested that family economic capital was positively associated with additional
learning opportunities. Prodan et al. (2015) even asserted low family income to be a barrier of
access to higher education. Aside from family support, parental education is also one of the family
backgrounds. The variable was found to play a crucial role in determining student learning as well
(Guimarães and Sampaio 2013; Mearman et al. 2014; De Paola and Gioia 2017), but others suggested
parental education to have no significant impact on student learning (Calkins, Willoughby, and
Arnold 1982; Cilasun 2013).
A huge amount of empirical literature has focused on the impact of school factors on academic
performance. Teaching quality has been considered as one of the school resources because in
every academic institution, teachers act as a school resource, which is highly needed. The
 STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION 5

influence of teachers on academic performance has been empirically investigated for decades. For
example, Stanca (2006) incorporated teaching evaluation as a proxy of teaching quality into the
investigated model and found that the variable had predictive power on academic performance.
Similar findings were also drawn by Clotfelter, Ladd, and Vigdor (2007) and Andrietti (2014). In con-
trast, Andrietti and Velasco (2015) incorporated teaching quality in the form of teaching evaluation
into the model of investigation and found the variable not to have predictive power on academic
performance.
Based on the above discussions, the empirical findings on each determinant of academic perform-
ance of students in higher education are differential and still debatable. The controversy in the
findings can be attributed to the methods used for estimations, data measurements, the quality of
data, or the context of each study.

Research methods
Research design
The present research was conducted based on a cross-sectional survey to examine the determinants
of academic performance of undergraduate students in Cambodia. In addition, the study employed
the cross-sectional regression method to examine the existence and magnitude of effects of the inde-
pendent variables on cumulative grade point average (CGPA).

Participants
Based on the objective of the study, 329 students were selected from a private university in Cambodia
for the academic year 2015–2016. In the selected university, there are five functioning colleges and all
the five colleges were selected for the study. In each college, the participants were selected by
employing a simple random sampling method. Among the selected participants, female students
accounted for 62% and male students for 37.1%. The mean age was 20.19 (SD = 1.33) with both
median and mode of 20, respectively. The participants were freshmen (26.7%) with 32.8% sopho-
mores, 28% juniors, and 12.5% seniors. In the selected university, students came from different
areas throughout Cambodia. The participants who came from rural areas accounted for 40.7% and
urban areas for 59.3%.

Research instrument
In the present research, the questionnaire was the main instrument employed to obtain the data for
analysis. This instrument was primarily used to gather information regarding two pre-determined
factors (personal and family ones) that were hypothesized to be the determinants of academic per-
formance. Hence, in an attempt to gather the necessary data in response to the given research objec-
tive set forth in this study, the survey questionnaire was designed into three different parts. Part 1
covered the general profiles (student ID number, major of study, and year of study). Part 2
covered the personal factors (age, gender, high school grade, English ability, employment, class
attendance, study effort, and academic self-efficacy), and Part 3 covered the family factors (mother
education, father education, family size, family SES, parental involvement, and household location).
The questionnaire had 33 items, which consisted of 27 five-point Likert scale items and the other
6 items were tallied.

Data collection procedure

The main study was conducted two weeks before the final exam of the second semester of the aca-
demic year 2015–2016. The questionnaires were randomly distributed to the participants in each
6 S. SOTHAN

college by the researcher and a group of trained assistants. It took approximately 20 minutes to
complete each questionnaire. 350 hundred questionnaires were mainly distributed to the students,
but only 329 questionnaires were completed and returned by the voluntary participants. However,
cumulative GPA and teaching evaluation (the proxy of teaching quality) were taken from the office
of the foundation-year studies programs and the office of academic affairs of the selected
university.

The econometric model

The dependent variable is CGPA that students had received after one year of study for the academic
year 2015–2016. In the present paper, CGPA was employed as the proxy of academic performance.
Using the following multivariate regression model, the study attempted to address the determinants
of academic performance (see Table A2 for the detailed definition and measurement of each vari-
able). In the present research, personal and family factors were incorporated, but for school variables,
only teaching evaluation was employed in the model as a measure of teaching quality. The multi-
variate regression analysis takes the form as in:


n

n
CGPAi = a + bi IVi + gi Di + et , (1)
i=1 i=1

where a is the constant. i denotes a subscript indicating data for the ith student and e is the random
error term. IV denotes the independent variables, which were classified into three factors, namely per-
sonal, family, and school factors. The personal factors included age, gender, high school grade, term-
time employment, English ability, class attendance, study effort, and academic self-efficacy. The
family factors included mother education, father education, parental involvement, family size,
family socio-economic status (SES), and household location. However, for the school variable, only
one variable, namely teaching evaluation, was included as a measure of teaching quality. D
denotes dummy variables, including gender taking 1 for female and 0 for male and household
location taking 1 for urban area and 0 for rural area. b and g denote the parameters to be estimated
for each of the independent variables. The coefficient of each independent variable was hypoth-
esized to be significantly different from zero (Ha: βs≠0 and γs≠0).

Principal component factor analysis

The study did not intend to use all the relevant variables, but a model by reducing several related
variables into a few important variables that were associated with one another. In order to reduce
the number of variables to be included in the analysis, the principal component factor analysis
(PCFA) was conducted as a data reduction technique. The items with low factor loadings (<0.45)
or low communalities (<0.30) were eliminated. The present research reduced a number of variables
into three main factors, namely study effort, parental involvement, and academic self-efficacy that
were employed as the determinants of academic performance in this paper. In addition, the study
also performed the reliability test to check the internal consistency of the survey, using the Cron-
bach’s alpha test of internal consistency (Cronbach 1951). The factor with a minimum Cronbach’s
alpha of at least 0.70 or higher was considered as a reliable measurement.

Empirical findings
Table 1 illustrates the findings on the PCFA. The values of the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measures of
sampling adequacy for all factors were more than 0.70, indicating that the sample size was
sufficient for analysis. In addition, all the values of factor loadings and communalities were found
to be greater than 0.45 and 0.30, respectively. This indicated that the PCFA was well defined. The
 STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION 7

Table 1. Results from the principal component factor analysis.

Factor loadings
Itemsb Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Communalities α
Item 1 0.775 0.826 0.957
Item 2 0.762 0.728
Item 3 0.705 0.840
Item 4 0.927 0.852
Item 5 0.677 0.844
Item 6 0.644 0.702
Item 7 0.765 0.700
Item 8 0.623 0.698
Item 9 0.725 0.857 0.903
Item 10 0.746 0.842
Item 11 0.788 0.818
Item 12 0.975 0.775 0.989
Item 13 0.893 0.944
Item 14 0.867 0.963
Item 15 0.897 0.957
Item 16 0.894 0.959
Item 17 0.911 0.949
Item 18 0.962 0.936
Item 19 0.933 0.943
Item 20 0.949 0.885
KMO statistics 0.728 0.751 0.917 0.863 0.943i
Notes: Factors 1, 2, and 3 denote study effort, parental involvement, and academic self-efficacy. α denotes Cronbach’s alpha. bIll-
ustrates the presentation of each item in Table A1 in the Appendix. KMO stands for Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling
adequacy. i is the value of the Cronbach’s alpha for the 20 items.

Cronbach’s αs of all the factors were greater than 0.70. The findings also confirmed good consistency
among the variables incorporated into the three factors.
Based on the findings from the multivariate regression analysis, the overall R2 was 0.742, meaning
that the dependent variable, cumulative GPA, was predicted by the independent variables for 74.2%.
The results of the variance inflation factor (VIF) showed that multicollinearity was not detected,
suggesting the model to be well defined for analysis. See Table 2 for the findings, the coefficient

Table 2. Results from the multivariate regression analysis.

95% CI for B Collinearity Statistics
Variables B SE LB UB Tolerance VIF
Age −0.008 0.015 -0.037 0.021 0.962 1.039
Gender 0.026 0.040 -0.053 0.106 0.944 1.060
High school grade 0.112* 0.030 0.053 0.171 0.617 1.619
Employment −0.015* 0.002 -0.020 −0.011 0.637 1.569
English ability 0.092* 0.030 0.032 0.151 0.834 1.199
Class attendance 0.152* 0.029 0.095 0.210 0.616 1.622
Study effort 0.099* 0.024 0.052 0.145 0.686 1.459
Academic self-efficacy 0.179* 0.026 0.128 0.229 0.584 1.712
Mother education −0.023 0.029 −0.081 0.035 0.690 1.450
Father education 0.020 0.028 −0.035 0.075 0.677 1.477
Family size −0.040* 0.013 −0.067 −0.014 0.934 1.071
Family SES 0.094* 0.020 0.054 0.134 0.727 1.376
Parental involvement 0.028 0.021 −0.014 0.070 0.813 1.230
Household location 0.060 0.041 −0.021 0.140 0.934 1.070
Teaching evaluation 0.020 0.034 −0.047 0.087 0.811 1.234
Constant 2.189* 0.377 1.447 2.930

R-squared 0.742
Adj.R-squared 0.739
F-statistic 56.976*
Notes: *denotes the 1% level of significance. SE and B denote standard error and the unstandardized coefficient, respectively. <CI,
LB, and UB denote confidence interval, lower bound, and upper bound, respectively. VIF stands for variance inflation factor.
8 S. SOTHAN

of age was negative, but statistically insignificant (B = −0.008, p > .05), indicating that age did not
have predictive power on academic performance. The coefficient of gender was positive and statisti-
cally insignificant (B = 0.026, p > .05). Hence, gender did not predict CGPA as well. In the present
research, high school grade was also incorporated into the analysis. The variable was found to
have a positive and statistically significant coefficient at the 1% level (B = 0.112, p < .01). Therefore,
high school grade positively contributed to the academic performance of the selected undergradu-
ate students. Based on the findings in Table 2, the coefficient of term-time employment was negative
and statistically significant at the 1% level (B = −0.015, p < .01). This supported the notion that
working during term time produced a negative impact on academic performance. In contrast to
term-time employment, English ability had a positive and statistically significant coefficient (B =
0.092, p < .01), suggesting that English ability had predictive power on academic performance. In
addition, the regression results also corroborated study effort (B = 0.099, p < .01) and class attendance
(B = 0.152, p < .01) to exert positive effects on CGPA because the coefficients of the two variables were
positive and statistically significant. Similarly, the findings in Table 2 indicated academic self-efficacy
to have a positive and statistically significant coefficient (B = 0.179, p < .01). Hence, academic self-
efficacy had predictive power on the academic performance of the selected students as well.
Turning to the family factors, the findings are surprising because the coefficients of mother and
father education were not statistically significant at the conventional level (p > .05), suggesting par-
ental education to have no significant impact on academic performance in the selected university.
However, the findings showed that family SES had a significantly positive impact on CGPA (B =
0.094, p < .01). In contrast, family size was found to be negatively associated with CGPA (B =
−0.040, p < .01), indicating that the students who came from large-size families were likely to
perform lower than those who came from small-sized families. Based on the findings, parental invol-
vement was not significantly associated with academic performance (p > .05). Hence, it can be
inferred that there was no relationship between parental involvement and academic performance.
Household location, one of the family factors, was not a predictor of CGPA as well because its coeffi-
cient was not statistically significant at the conventional level (p > .05).
In this paper, teaching evaluation, a proxy of teaching quality, was used to evaluate the quality of
teaching of each academic staff in the selected university. The study did not find teaching quality to
have a statistically significant coefficient although positive (B = 0.020, p > .05); hence, there was no
sufficient evidence to show that teaching quality had a significant impact on academic performance.

Discussions
The influence of age and gender on academic performance has been investigated for decades with
widely differential conclusions. The findings of the present research suggested age to have a negative
coefficient, but not statistically significant, indicating that age did not have a significant impact on
academic performance. This finding is validated by the studies of Rochford, Connolly, and
Drennan (2009), and Unni et al. (2011) who found that age did not predict academic performance.
In this paper, gender did not have predictive power on academic performance as well. The finding
is consistent with the studies of Duff (2004) who suggested that gender differences were no
longer an issue in today’s higher education. In contrast, the finding is not empirically supported by
Alfan and Othman (2005), Alhajraf and Alasfour (2014), and Kim et al. (2016) who found gender to
have an influence on academic performance.
As reported in Table 2, the high school grade variable had positive effects on academic perform-
ance. The explanation is that those students who had high ability or academically performed well at
high school were likely to perform well at university. This indicated the study habits that students had
during high school were also brought to university. The findings of the present research suggested a
stable connection between studies in high school and university. In addition, high school grade
reflected past ability, which played a crucial role in predicting academic performance of students
in higher education. Therefore, it led to a better academic performance in university as what students
 STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION 9

did in high school. The finding is corroborated by a number of studies who proposed high school
grade to have predictive power on academic performance in higher education (Cohn et al. 2004;
Andrietti 2014; Danilowicz-Gösele et al. 2017).
In a vast majority of empirical studies, English ability has not been investigated as one of the
factors affecting student performance at university, but in case of a non-native English speaking
country, such as Cambodia, English language plays a significant role in every student’s academic
life in higher education because sufficient English ability enables students to read a variety of
books published in English, which later provides them with opportunities to gain more knowledge
and improve their academic performance. As seen in Table 2, English ability positively contributed
to academic performance. This suggested that English ability really played a crucial role in predicting
undergraduate students’ academic performance. This finding is supported by the studies of Fakeye
and Ogunsiji (2009) and Sadeghi et al. (2013) who found English ability to be a significant predictor of
academic performance. Accordingly, it can be hypothesized that the students with high English
ability are likely able to outperform those with low English ability. Why is English important? It is
because, in higher education, high English ability widely enables students to read textbooks in
English, do research, and search for all relevant learning materials that are available in English
both online and in the library.
As illustrated in Table 2, the present research supported the important role of class attendance in
student performance, meaning that any student who attended lectures regularly would obtain a
higher cumulative GPA because regular class attendance could improve engagement in class activi-
ties (Marks 2000) and provide students with opportunities to attend lectures, participate in class dis-
cussions, and obtain classroom information, which later led to high academic performance (Ajiboye
and Tella 2006). Hence, a mandatory class attendance policy can play an important role in boosting
regular class attendance and student performance. This finding is supported by a number of studies
(e.g. Chen and Lin 2008; Hwang 2013; Andrietti 2014; Andrietti and Velasco 2015). In contrast, Hunter
and Tetley (1999) provided a different view, arguing class attendance not to have predictive power on
academic performance and noted that pass rates in higher education had increased over the years as
attendance rates had fallen.
Aside from class attendance, study effort has been investigated for decades, but the findings are
still controversial. At school, students are generally encouraged to put more effort into their study in
order to improve their academic performance because class attendance is not enough and they have
to make time for reading textbooks, doing assignments/homework, doing exercises, and practicing
what has been learnt during class sessions. However, empirical findings seem to go very far from con-
clusion. Based on the findings of the present paper, study effort had predictive power on academic
performance. This finding indicated that any student who put more effort or spent more actual time
on their study outside class sessions was likely able to gain better academic performance. Further-
more, when students exerted more effort into their study, it means that they came to class regularly,
submitted assignments on time, spent more time on academic readings, worked cooperatively with
others, etc. Finally, it would lead to better academic performance at school. The finding is corrobo-
rated by the studies of Wooten (1998), Swinton (2010), and Andrietti and Velasco (2015) who vali-
dated the important role of effort in predicting academic performance at school. In contrast, this
finding is not consistent with previous studies who suggested effort to have no significant impact
or link with academic performance (Schuman et al. 1985; Stanca 2006; Guney 2009).
The findings of this paper showed that academic self-efficacy was significantly and positively
associated with academic performance. Psychologically, when students have a strong belief in
their ability to perform well at school, it pushes them to try hard for a better result. In addition,
with high confidence in ability, students can perceive that the experience they face at school is
not a threat, but a challenge. This provides them with high perseverance in pursuing better academic
performance. Consequently, they will academically perform better than those who have less confi-
dence in ability. This finding is supported by the empirical studies of Chemers, Hu, and Garcia
10 S. SOTHAN

(2001) and Balkis (2011) who suggested academic self-efficacy to have predictive power on the aca-
demic performance of students in higher education.
Turning to the family factors, the present research did not find parental education, parental invol-
vement, and household location to be predictive of academic performance. As illustrated in Table 2,
the findings are surprising because the coefficients of mother and father education were not signifi-
cant at the conventional level, suggesting parental education to have no predictive power on aca-
demic performance. It would be because, in higher education, students’ realizations on the
importance of education were independent and not significantly associated with their parent’s edu-
cation; therefore, parental education was not likely to have a role in predicting academic performance
of the selected undergraduate students. This finding is validated by Calkins, Willoughby, and Arnold
(1982) and Cilasun (2013), but inconsistent with the findings of Duggal and Mehta (2015) who
suggested parental education to be an important predictor of academic performance in college.
Turning to parental involvement, the variable had a positive coefficient, but statistically insignificant
at the conventional level, implying that parental involvement did not exert significant influence on
academic performance as well. This would be because when students studied at university, they
were likely to be more independent from their parents’ control; therefore, parental involvement
did not have a significant impact on academic performance. Most importantly, in higher education,
students are mature enough and have more freedom from their parents’ control. Hence, they have
their own decisions which are not influenced by their parents. This finding is contrary to previous
findings on the impact of parental involvement on the academic performance of students at the
primary and secondary education because these students are mostly under their parents’ control.
Therefore, parental involvement has played a dominant role in predicting students’ performance
at the primary and secondary education (Perna and Titus 2005; Degol et al. 2017; Sebastian, Moon,
and Cunningham 2017; Wang and Cai 2017), but not in higher education. Focusing on household
location, the variable was not found to be associated with academic performance as well, indicating
that there was no difference in academic performance in terms of household locations whether stu-
dents came from urban or rural areas. This suggested household location to be no longer a concern in
higher education.
In contrast, two family background variables were found to be significant predictors of academic
performance. For instance, family SES had a positive impact on academic performance. Any student
who came from a family with higher SES outperformed those who came from a family with low SES
due to obtaining sufficient financial and material support provided by their family. In addition, family
SES was one of the most important resources that were helpful to students, particularly their study
(Lovenheim and Reynolds 2013). Hence, any student who came from a family with high SES would
face less financial distress and she or he would not be worried about financial needs. Accordingly,
they would not spend time looking for a part-time or full-time job during term time, which could
cause possible disasters to their study. This finding is endorsed by the studies of Sackett et al.
(2009), Mearman et al. (2014), and De Paola and Gioia (2017) who suggested family SES to be the
important predictor of student learning in higher education.
On the contrary, the findings in Table 2 suggested the coefficient of family size to be negative and
statistically significant, meaning that family size had a negative impact on academic performance.
The students who came from large-sized families were likely to perform lower at school compared
to those who came from small-sized families. The reason is that there would be a lack of encourage-
ment from their families, particularly in large-sized families. In addition, it could be quite hard for
large-sized families to provide sufficient materials and financial support for their children’s edu-
cational needs, which later led to poor academic performance.
Turning to school characteristics, there has been extensive empirical literature on the impact of
school factors on academic performance. Among the variables incorporated into the estimation
model in this paper, only teaching evaluation, which was employed as the proxy of teaching
quality, was included as a school factor. As seen in Table 2, the variable had a positive and statistically
insignificant coefficient, suggesting that teaching quality did not have a significant impact on
 STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION 11

academic performance. It would be because the teaching quality of the academic staff in the selected
university was not differential; hence, it led to an insignificant impact on academic performance. This
finding is consistent with Andrietti and Velasco (2015) who found teaching quality to have no pre-
dictive power on academic performance. However, the finding is not corroborated by Andrietti
(2014), Stanca (2006), and Clotfelter, Ladd, and Vigdor (2007) who found teaching quality to be a sig-
nificant predictor of academic performance.

Conclusion and recommendations

The predictors of academic performance have been investigated for decades in many countries
around the globe, but the empirical findings are still limited in Cambodia. Hence, this paper was con-
ducted to determine the determinants of academic performance of undergraduate students in Cam-
bodia. Fifteen variables, both endogenous and exogenous, were incorporated into the estimation
model.
Among the 15 variables hypothesized to have influence on student academic performance, six
variables, namely high school grade, English ability, class attendance, study effort, academic self-
efficacy, and family SES, were found to have predictive power on academic performance, implying
that these variables were very important determinants of academic performance of the selected
undergraduates. Term-time employment had a negative and significant impact on academic per-
formance, suggesting that working during term time did not contribute to academic performance.
Therefore, compulsory or mandatory attendance policy would play a very important role in promot-
ing class attendance and academic performance. In addition, family size was also found to have a
negative impact on academic performance. The other five variables, including age, gender, house-
hold location, parental education, and parental involvement, did not have a significant impact on aca-
demic performance. Turning to school factors, only teaching quality was included. The variable was
found to have no significant impact on academic performance. It does not mean teaching quality
does not have any impact on academic performance; it would be because the teaching quality in
the selected university was not differential; therefore, it produced an insignificant result. However,
teaching quality is still considered as one of the most important school resources in promoting aca-
demic performance and it should be the top agenda in the faculty recruitment list.
Based on the above findings, the present research suggested the personal factors to play the
potential role in predicting academic performance of undergraduate students; therefore, educational
policy makers should focus on enforcing the mandatory attendance policy in order to boost class
attendance. Aside from this, any program provided by higher education institutions that helps in pro-
moting study effort is highly valued. Another recommendation is that the government should
provide more financial support or scholarships to those students who come from a poor background.
Finally, schools should develop programs that contribute to the enrichment of the parent–school
relationship with the main purpose to promote academic performance. It is because school alone
is not enough to promote student learning; hence, parental involvement or participation is also
the potential prerequisite.

Significance of the study

Determining the determinants of academic performance of students in higher education is definitely
important because any factor that influences academic performance is of concern to educators. First
of all, the present research would serve as a source of ideas for educators and educational policy
makers because the study had incorporated 15 variables, which mainly derived from the personal,
family, and school factors. Secondly, this paper would also contribute to the literature where previous
research has been conducted only in other countries, but not in Cambodia. Internationally, although
multiple factors have been found to have a relationship with academic performance, it is important to
explore the factors that contribute most to Cambodian students. This would help fill the existing gap
12 S. SOTHAN

in the research conducted in Cambodia in this area. In addition, it could serve as a contribution to the
comparison of national and international research findings. Thirdly, this paper would not only serve
as a source of ideas for educators and educational policy makers, but also for students themselves,
and their parents because the study incorporated student personal and family factors as the deter-
minants of academic performance.

Limitations of the study

This paper chose a small sample size of only 329 students from a university in Cambodia for the aca-
demic year 2015–2016. In addition, the study incorporated only a number of variables into the esti-
mation model. In fact, there are more factors to be considered. Aside from this, the paper employed
only one school factor, teaching quality, but not other school-related variables into the analysis.
Therefore, the study does not attempt to make any generalization. However, it can be a source of
ideas and for further studies.

Acknowledgements
First of all, the author would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions to
improve this paper. Aside from this, the author thanks the participants in the selected university’s meeting to discuss
the findings of this paper and for their valuable comments to improve the paper. However, all the views and the remain-
ing errors belong to the author.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Appendix
Table A1. List of variables for factor analysis.
Factors Items
Study effort Item 1 I always spend a lot of time on doing extra practices and exercises outside class.
Item 2 I always spend a lot of time on doing homework/ assignments and submit them on time.
Item 3 I have worked hard to complete all the courses successfully in each academic semester.
Item 4 During lecture time, I always get involved in class activities.
Item 5 I always spend a lot of time to study with my friends and classmates.
Item 6 I always spend a lot of time to read lecture notes and other relevant reading materials.
Item 7 I always pay full attention on each topic being taught during lecture time.
Item 8 I always come to class on time.
Parental Item 9 My parents often monitor the results of my study.
involvement Item 10 My parents often encourage me to study hard and perform well at school.
Item 11 My parents often advise me to put all attention on my study and not to go out a lot.
Academic self- Item 12 I believe that I am able to graduate within the specified time of the program I choose to study.
efficacy Item 13 I believe that I can work independently.
Item 14 I believe that I can effectively plan my study and meet deadlines.
Item 15 I believe that I have competency to finish all courses on time for the program of my study.
Item 16 I believe that I am able to get good results for my study.
Item 17 I believe that I can pass all the courses in the program I choose.
Item 18 I have confidence about my ability to finish assignments, homework, and other extra work
assigned by professors.
Item 19 I am confident about my ability to prepare and initiate my own study activities.
Item 20 I am confident that I can deal with the challenges I face during my study.
16 S. SOTHAN

Table A2. Measurement of each variable.

Variablea Measurement
Age The number of years
Gender Dummy: 1 if female, 0 if male
High school grade High school grades were classified as A, B, C, D, and E. The variable was measured based on a
five-point scale.
Term-time employment The number of work hours per week
English ability Measured based on a five-level scale: 1 for elementary level, 2 for pre-intermediate level, 3 for
intermediate level, 4 for upper-intermediate level, and 5 for advanced level.
Class attendance Measured based on a five-point scale (5: no absence, 4: absence < two weeks, 3: absence from
three to four weeks, 2: absence from five to ten weeks, and 1: absence >10 ten weeks per
semester)
Study effort Measured based on 8 items as suggested in Table A1. Each item was measured based on a five-
point scale.
Academic self-efficacy Measured based on 9 items as suggested in Table A1. Each item was measured based on a five-
point scale.
Mother education Measured based on a five-level scale
Father education Measured based on a five-level scale
Parental involvement Measured based on 3 items as described in Table A1. Each item was measured based on a five-
point scale.
Family size The number of people living in the family
Family SES Measured based on a five-point scale
Household location Dummy: 1 for urban area and 0 for rural area
Teaching evaluation Measured based on a five-point scale
Cumulative Grade Point The weighted average GPA which student had received after one year of study
Average (CGPA)
a
all the variables were self-reported by the participants, except teaching evaluation and cumulative GPA obtained from the office of
foundation-year studies program and the office of academic affairs of the selected university.