Abstract

Exponential growth in the higher education institute, imparting professional education,

has given many opportunities for student as well as service providers in terms of
admission as well as meeting the professional aspirations. Private institute of higher
degree, due to the better funding, small sizes, serious ownership, motivated faculty access
to resources such as computers perform better than government colleges. These
additional funding resources and facilities found in private institute/university enhance
academic performance and education attainment of their students. Other than the factors
mentioned above there may be factors such as; entrance score for the admission,
academic gap after exposure, medium of study, Socio Economic Class ad categories
e.t.c .,Which may have impact o the academic performances of the student studying in the
nature degree professional courses. The present study provides a brief examination of
some of the factors that influence the academic performance of the students who have
enrolled themselves for the degree of Master of Business Management (MBA)’. The
choice of factors reviewed here was on their importance to the current study. The
required data was collected for total 102 MBA students and their academic performance
of student. Study shows that variable attendance is best predictor followed by graduation
followed by graduation marks, study shows that variable attendance is best predictor
followed by graduation marks, Study medium, academic gap, and entrance score. Only
one variable ‘category was found to have negatives coefficient which shows a negative
contribution towards nth discriminate function.

Keywords- Discriminant function, Canonical correlation, Educational Attainment,

Academic Performance, Exponential.

INTRODUCTION:

Higher Education sector has witnessed a remarkable increase, in the number of

Universities /University level Institution and colleges as well as in terms of enrollment, in
the past decades.

The Number of Universities has increased 38 times from 20 in 1950 to 780 in 2015. The
CII-Deloitte report on “Annual Atatus of Higher Education of States and UTs in india
2015, of the total enrolment of 301.5 lakhs student (55.1% male and 44.9% female
enrolmets) in the Higher education institutes in India, Uttar Pradesh ranks first
(46.7Lakhs), followed by tamil Nadu (32.1 Lakhs), Maharashtra (30.8 lakhs), Karnataka
(18.6 lakhs) and west Bengal (16.6 lakhs), Karnataka (18.6 lakhs) and west Bengal (16.6
lakhs, 5.5%). Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerela, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka itself
account for more than one-fourth (28.9%) of the total enrollments across india. Number
of colleges has also registered an increase of 81 times as they were just 500 in 1950 and
has grown to 40760, till 31st March, 2015. The Exponential growth in number of colleges
and growth in the number of college and growth of student enrolment in higher education
has posed many problems in measuring student academic performance. This has drawn
the attention of academicians and researchers working in this field.

A number of studies have been carried out to identify and analyse the numerous factors
and affect academic performance in various centers of learning.

Their findings identify students’ efforts, previous schooling (Siegfriend & Fels,
1979),Parents education, family income (Devadoss & Fels, 1979), self motivation, age of
students, learning preference (Aripin, mahmood,Rohaized, Yeop,) & Anuar, 2008), class
attendance (Romer,1993), and entry qualifications as factors that have a significant effect
on the students academic performance.

Academic performance in a complex student behavior and underlies several

abilities, e.g., memory, previous knowledge or aptitude as well as psychological factors
such as motivation, interests, and temperaments or emotions (Deary, Whiteman, Starr,
Whalley, and Fox,2004). Academic performance is affected by a number of factors
including admission points, social economic status and school background.

According to Graetz (1995), one’s educational success depends very strongly on social
economic status of the parents. Considine and Zappala (2002) argue that families where
the parents are advantaged socially, educational and economically, foster a high level of
achievement in their children. He found that parent’s income or social status positively
affects the students test score in examination. Pedrosa et. Al (2006) in their study on
social and educational background performed relatively better than others coming from
higher socio-economic and educational background performed relatively better than
others coming from higher socio-economic and educational area. Escarce (2003) is his
study found that, the total income of families (monthly or annually) and their
expenditures also put a great effect on the learning and academic opportunies accessible
to youngsters and their chances of educational success. Furthermore, he also pointed that
due to residential stratification and segregation, the students belonging to low-income
backgrounds usually attend schools with lower funding levels, and this situation reduced
achievement motivation of the student and it may cause for high risk of educational
malfunction in future life endeavors.
School education and performance is another variable that have been found to influence
the higher education performance of the students. According to Minnesota measures
(2007), a report on higher education performance, which was produced by the University
of Minnesota, the most reliable predictor of student success in college is the academic
preparation of students in high school.

Ali, Shoukat,et al (2013) in their study “Factors contributing to the student’s Academic
Performance: A case study of Islamia Uiversity Su-Campus” investigate the factors
affecting academic performance of Graduate student of islamia University of ahawalpur
Rahih yatr khan Campus. The Variables under consideration were the academic
performance (Student’s grades/marks) as a dependent variable and the gender, age,
Faculty of study, schooling, and Father/guardian social economic status, and residential
area, medium of schooling; tuition trend, daily study hours and accommodation trend
were independent variable. The findings revealed that age, father/guardian social
economic status and daily study hours significantly contribute the academic performance
of graduate student. A linear model was also proposed to improve the academic
performance of graduate students at University level.

Other than the variable mentioned above student’s attendance is an important issue in
today’s higher education system. Many universities have compulsory attendance policies,
while universities have compulsory attendance policies, while other refrain from making
it as such. Despite the different policies, there seems to be consensus among the
professors about the positive effect of attendance in academic performance. Not attending
classes is seen as one of the reasons for academic failure. Researchers have found
significant relationship between attendance and academic performance and concluded
that initial attendance is a lair predictor of future academic performance
(Plant,Ericsson,Hill and Asberg,2005).

In his widely cited paper, roomer (1993) is one of the first few authors to explore the
relationship between student attendance and exam performance. Low attendance of the
student has found to have negative impact on academic performance. But the question
arise here what cause for such low attendance of the student. A number of factors have
identified to have an association with declining class attendance of the student has found
to have negative impact on academic performance. But the question arise here what cause
for such low attendance of the student.

A number of factors have identified to have an association with declining class

attendance around the world in the last 15 years. The Major reasons given by students for
non-attendance include assessment pressures, poor delivery of lecture assessment
pressures, poor delivery of lectures, timing of lectures, and work commitment (Newman-
Ford, lord & Thomas, 2009). It is also observed that while studying students seek
employment on a part-time basis. The numbers of part-time mature students has also
risen sharply. The use of information technology also means that information that used to
obtain at the click of a mouse.

Indeed, web-based learning approaches have become the order of the day. Given all this
developments that either makes it impossible or unnecessary for students attend classes,
the question that needs to be asked is weather absenteeism affects students’ academic
performance. Research on this subject who miss classes perform poorly compared to
those who attend classes (Devadoes & Foltz, 1996; Durden & Ellis, 1995; Romer, 1993;
park & kerr, 1990; Schmidt,1983).

Rodgers (2001) found that attendance has a small but statistically significant effect on
performance in a simple of sample of 167 introductory statistics course. Kirby and
McElroy (2003) study the determinates of levels of attendance at lectures and classes and
the relationship with exam performance in sample of 368 first year economics students,
finding that hours worked and travel time are the main determinants of attendance, and
that the late, in turn, has a positive and diminishing marginal effect on grade.

However, numbers of studies have been conducted to examine the relationship of several
factors, mentioned in above discussed literature worldwide, wide academic performance
but so far no such study was found to be considered in India in best of our knowledge,
This study is an attempt to bridge this gap.

OBJECTION OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Purpose of the present study is to analyze if factors like student attendance in the
class, his socio economics class and categories, medium of schooling, academic gap
between one class to another, previous educational qualification score and whether
student have taken admission on the basis of entrance exam of direct admission affect
academic performance of student doing professional course in higher educational
institutes ad University. The Specific objective of the study includes:

i. To establish the relationship between student’ admission criteria ad academic

performance.

ii. To establish the relationship between class attendance ad academic performance of

professional students.
iii. To establish the relationship between’ demographic factors ad academic
performance.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this study a linear discriminant function, to discriminate post graduate students

according to their academic performance, was formed. Academic performance in master
degree programme (MBA) was taken as a dependent variable whereas, student’s
attendance in the class, his/her socio economic class and category, medium of schooling,
academic gap between one class to another, previous educational qualification score and
whether student have taken admission were taken as independent variables. Students
taken in the study are MBA students of Uttaranchal University, Dehradun for the
academic batch 2013-15. The sample consist of (n=102) graduate student of Uttaranchal
University, Dehradun. All the relevant information were collected from the admission
record and academic record recorded by the university. Data was coded into SPSS
22.0(version) and Microsoft Excel 2007.Discriminant analysis was carried out for testing
the hypothesis that the academic performance of professional students of Uttaranchal
University is independent of the factor like Attendace,Category,Medium, Academic Gap,
Graduation marks and entrance test. The outcome of the analysis is discussed in the
following section of this study.

Data Analysis and Interpretation: Data analysis an interpretation of the outcome have
been presented in the following lines:

Wilk’s Lambda and F Statistics for test of Equality: Results on test of equality of
group means for the predictive variables are presented in Table 1. Table shows that there
is a significant difference between the two groups (success and un-success) only for two
predictive variables are able to study. In other words these two variables are to
discriminate the students significant in two predictive variables namely to discriminate
the students significantly in two groups.

Independent Wilks’ Lambda F Sig.

variables
Attendance 0.560 78.647 0.000
Category 0.996 0.384 0.537
Medium 0.961 4.111 0.045
Academic Gap 0.997 0.350 0.555
Graduation marks 0.989 1.119 0.293
Entrance test 0.998 0.212 0.646
To examine whether there is an equal variance between or among the group, Box’s M test
has been worked out. Results are presented in the Table 2. Results rejects to the general
assumption and null hypothesis that,

“there is no equal variance group” and shows that there is an equal variance between the
groups with Box’s M value 17.022 and p value 0.775.

Table 2: Box’s M value 17.022 ad p value 0.775.

Box’s M 17.022
F Approx. .757
df1 21
df2 31457.216
Sig. .775

Strength of relationship between predictive variables ad outcome groups: To measure the

strength of relationship between predictive variables and outcome groups canonical
discrimiant functions were used in the analysis; results are presented I the Table 3.
Results show that there is a high degree positive canonical correlation (0.694) exists
between predictive variables ad outcome groups.

Canoical Discriminant function and Canonical correlation

Function Eigen value % of variance Cumulative% Canonical

Correlation
1 0.928 100.0 100.0 0.694
Statistical Significance and Discrimination Power of model: Table shows the results of
Chi-Square test with successive Root Removed’. Table shows a Wilk’s Lambda (1-
caonical correlation) value 0.519 which is close to 0.5. Though it ranges from 0-1but,
value close to 0 is considered well which indicates better discriminating power of the
model. The chi-square test shows the highly significant discrimination between the two
groups at two groups at 5% level of significance with chi- square value=63.70 and
p=0.000.

Wilks Lambda and chi-square test

Test of Wilks’ Lambda Chi-square Df Sig.

Function(s)
1 0.519 63.70 6 0.000
Prediction Power of the model: The result of classification matrix are presented in table
5. From the table it is observed that the discriminant function obtained is observed that
the discriminant function obtained is able to classify 81.4% of the 102 student correctly.
More precisely it is to say that out of 58 cases predicted in group 2 and out of 44 cases
predicted I group 2, 8 were found to be in group 1. By this way total 19(11+8) cases were
misclassified in the discriminate model. The model classifies 81.4% which is calculated
as (total case-misclassified cases)/ total cases=(102-19)/102=81.4%

Outcome Predicted Group Membership

Un-success Success Total
Original Count Un-success 47 11 58
Success 8 36 44
% Un-success 81.0 19.0 100.00
Success 18.2 81.8 100.00
81.4% of Original grouped cases correctly classified

Identification of the variables Discriminating the groups: To Identify the va riables

significantly discriminating the group with other, this study includes six independent
variables namely Attendance, Category, study Medium, Academic gap, Graduation
marks, and Entrance test in the discriminant function. Result of the function are presented
in table 6.

Table 6: Standardized conical Discriminant function coefficient

Function
Independent Variables 1
Attendance 1.016
Category -0.45
Medium .152
Academic Gap .129
Graduation Marks .373
Entrance Test .055

Classification of New case (student):Since the study aim to identify the variable that has
best prediction power for discriminating the student, it is very important to know how
these new students could be discriminated the student, it is very important to know how
know how these new students could be discriminated/group in any of the predefined
group. The output shown in Table 7 helps to answer this question by applying the
following unstandardization linear discriminant function:

Y=α+β1 *Attendance + β2 *Category +β3 * Medium + β4 *Academic Gap + β5 *Graduation

Marks + β6 * Entrance Test Score.

Where, Y= Discrimiant Score, α= Constant, β1, β2 , β3, β4, β5 and β6 are the
coefficient of the variable; attendace,category,medium, academic, academic gap,
graduation marks, and entrance test score respectively.

Function 1
Independent Variable Coefficient Value Symbol
Attendance .097 β1
Category -.078 β2
Medium .380 β3
Academic Gap .279 β4
Graduation marks .034 β5
Entrance test .119 Β6
Constant(α) -8.538 (α)

Further, tables 8 shows that the new means of the transformed group centroids. The mean
of first group centroid (un-success) is -0.831 and the mean of second group centroid
(success) is 1.095 which gives the decision rule for classifying new case (student). If the
discriminant score of the new student is positive we classify him/her as a successful and
vice versa.

Tables: Functions at Group Centroids

Function
Outcome Group Means
Un-success -.831
Success 1.095
Unstandardized canonical discriminant functions evaluated at group means

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Exponential growth in the higher educational institutes, imparting professional education,

has given many opportunities for students as well as service providers in terms of
admission as well as meeting the professional aspiration. Private institutes of higher
degree, due to the better, funding, small sizes, serious ownership, motivated faculty ad
access to resources such as computers perform better than Government College. These
additional funding resources such as computers perform better than government colleges.
These additional funding resources and facilities found in private institute/universities
enhance academic performance and educational attainment of their students. Other than
the factors mentioned above there may be some factors such as; entrance score for the
admission, academic gap after completing graduation, student’s attendance, residential
exposure, medium of study, social economic class and categories etc., which may have
impact on the academic performance of the student studying in the master degree
professional courses. The present study provides a brief examination of some of the
factors that influence academic performance of the student using discrimiannt function.
On the basis of the finding this study concludes that variable attendance is best predictor
for the academic performance of the students that supports to the previous studies