As students' academic performance depends upon many factors and complex circumstances and

one of the first complex phenomena is that educational services are often intangible and hard to
measure. Researchers primarily focused on finding out the variables which separated students on
the academic performance and the factors for which student’s academic performances became
poor (McGavin, 1998). In some recent studies, findings showed that factors like class attendance,
family income, parents’ education level, teacher-student ratio, presence of the experienced
teacher, gender of student, the distance of the school, Learning facilities, communication skills,
and proper guidance from parents affect the performance of the students (Raychaudhuri et al.,
2010; Singh et al., 2016). Some other studies held the view that student’s performances are
connected with regular access to library computer facilities, social structure, parent’s
contribution in their child’s education (Furstenberg & Hughes, 1995; Young, 1999; Karemera,
2003). Frazier (2019) reported students who claimed that stress affects their performance had a
lower GPA and had more stress and lower self-efficiency, tolerance, and social support. Gender
was also found as a significant factor for the academic performance of the students as well as
stress (Ghazvi et al., 2011). Besides this, students’ health was also associated with the academic
study. It was found that students with the most vulnerable health revealed a high possibility of
failure and dropout (Shaw et al., 2015).
The performance of students in academics is a multidimensional process that reveals students'
ability (Steinberger, 2017). Academic performance refers that how considerable students study
their courses and achieved their educational goals. Academic performance describes the
personality of individuals (Cheesman et al., 2006). Academic performance relates to a student's
academic disciplines in school as well as the abilities that the student is expected to master in
each topic (Kathryn, 2010).
Determinants of students' performance have received considerable attention in the education
literature, and it continues to be a challenged theme. Student performance is generally viewed as
product of socio-economic, psychological and environmental factors. Hence, the factors are
expected to vary from one country to another.
Students’ academic gain and learning performance is affected by numerous factor including
gender, age, teaching faculty, students schooling, father/guardian social economic status,
residential area of students, medium of instructions in schools, tuition trend, daily study hour and
accommodation as hostelries or day scholar. Many researchers conducted detailed studies about
the factors contributing student performance at different study levels. Graetz (1995) suggested
“A student educational success contingent heavily on social status of student’s parents/guardians
in the society. Considine and Zappala (2002) noticed the same that parent’s income or social
status positively affects the student test score in examination.
According to Minnesota (2007) “the higher education performance is depending upon the
academic performance of graduate students. Durden and Ellis quoted Staffolani and Bratti,
(2002) observed that “the measurement of students previous educational outcomes are the most
important indicators of students future achievement, this refers that as the higher previous
appearance, better the student’s academic performance in future endeavors.
Lot of studies have been conducted in the area of students achievement and these studies identify
and analyze the number of factors that affect the academic performance of the student at school,
college and even at university level. Their finding identify students’ effort, previous schooling,
parent’s educational background, family income, self-motivation of students, age of student,
learning preferences and entry qualification of students as important factors that have effect on
student’s academic performance in different setting. The utility of these studies lies in the need to
undertake corrective measures that improve the academic performance of graduate students.
Parent’s socio-economic condition, which includes parents’ academic and professional
qualification, revenue and occupational affiliation, is also associated with academic gain of
students. The results of many studies confirmed that academic achievement of students is
contingent upon parent’s socio-economic condition.
It is concluded that the type of schools in which students studies greatly influence the
educational performance and academic achievement of the students. The educational
environment of the school one attends sets the parameters of students’ learning outcomes. Most
of the teachers working in poor schools or schools having run short of basic facilities often have
low performance expectations from their students and when students know that their teachers
have low performance expectations from them, hence it leads to poor performance by the
students. Private schools due to the better funding, small sizes, serious ownership, motivated
faculty and access to resources such as computers perform better than public schools.
Student's academic performance is influenced by the learning facilities. Learning facility means
any building used for instruction of enrolled students. In the educational institution, there is a
library, a computer lab, teachers, and transportation, among other things. Learning facilities in
Pakistan are unsatisfactory and there is a lack of physical infrastructure, teachers and transport
etc.
Peer groups play a crucial role in the educational lifetime of students. A little group of
similar age, close friends sharing an equivalent activity is defined as a peer group. They help
their friends to build a sense of identity. Peers influence each other in several ways like help in
exam preparation, help in making assignments, solve educational problems, etc.
Individual interest has been reasonably continuing to focus on specific things and actions,
and it is related to learning. Individual interests are motivated learners to attend the class
regularly, participate in class during lectures, etc. Adeyemo (2005) stated that the importance of
interest for an individual can't be miscalculated. Interest demonstrates a learner's inclination to
react positively to specific parts of the environment, and it is often created in relation to and
maintained in conjunction with more fundamental reasons.
Above empirical evidence shows that academic performance of students is extremely
important to institutions, and it must be evaluated in order to develop quality education which is
a key factor for development of every individual as well as society and develops human
resources and provides opportunities for the future of developing countries like Pakistan. But,
unfortunately in Pakistan, literacy rate from the last few years is showing a tremendous decrease.
According to the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurements (PSLM) Survey (2015),
60 percent of the population (10 years and older) is literate. The educational level in Pakistan
must be improved in order to produce well-educated, skilled, and capable persons who can meet
the dynamic market need. Academic performance is the result of education it means that how
much students achieved their goals (Abhishek, 2006). Students are the soul of educational
institutions. An educational institution has no value without students. So, the role of this
institution is to make them great power of the country (Ali et al., 2009). Students’ performance
and the graduation rate has been the area of investigation because the performance of students is
low. There is a need to investigate those factors which affect students’ performance (Erum,
2011) that includes various factors. It is very important to find out these factors (Kudari, 2016).
As a consequence, the researcher looked for aspects that have control on university students’
performance.
Statement of the Problem
 Academic performance of universities’ students is something which everyone expects to
be of higher quality because of the roles the sector plays to provide service to the community, on
the other hand those who failed to perform better cannot contribute well to the human resources
because they don’t have skill needed. Although there is adequate literature, globally those
identified the factors which significantly affect students’ academic performance and the possible
solution, but in Pakistan, little research was found to address this issue. Besides this, very few
published research work is available that addressed the factors affecting the academic
performance of university students particularly in Pakistan. Despite of its importance, this has
not been implemented effectively at higher educational institutions in Pakistan, thus, many
Pakistani universities still lack improved academic performance. According to the World of
Statistics (2023), only one Pakistani university “Quaid-i-Azam University” is the sole Pakistani
university on the list, ranking among the top 500 world educational institutions while The
Women University Multan-Pakistan is ranked #751 in Asian University Rankings of 2023. This
is an alarming situation for Pakistani nation generally and for the authorities of higher
educational institutions in Pakistan particularly. Thus, it is a matter of great concern to find out
the factors which are currently influencing the academic performance of university students in
Pakistan.
Purpose of the Study
Education institution has always emphasis on its students’ performance because educational
success of their students is part of their great concern. For this purpose, different studies have
been conducted to evaluate different causes which affect students’ academic results. This study
was designed to find out the numerous factors which effect students’ academic performance.
Specifically, this research was to analyze the result of both internal (faculty characteristics,
curriculum type, institutional support, work load, class size, learning resources) and external
factors (student characteristics i.e. interest & motivation, family background, gender, peer
influence) on students’ academic performance.