Academic, social and cultural factors influencing medical school grade performance

Abstract

Studies of medical student performance have focused on various factors, including premedical academics, maturity, familial background and support, and personal experiences with illness. Most studies have been conducted in countries with highly developed educational systems and similar cultural and social systems. It is not clear that these findings can be applied to developing countries, where the educational and cultural experiences may be very different, and where medical instruction is carried out in a non-native language. Information was obtained from a survey of 153 fifth- and sixth-year medical students at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. The survey measured premedical educational, social and cultural experiences that might affect medical school performance. Men performed as well as women in the medical school despite heavy familial and social commitments. Women's performance seems to be more influenced by changes in living environment. Achievement in premedical years was correlated positively with grade performance in medical school. Competence in the high-school English courses was related to medical school performance. Interest in the study of medicine prior to medical school was not related to performance. Other motivations, such as social gains, financial benefits or family wish, were related to lower performance. Current interest in clinical medicine correlated negatively with performance. Students motivated by the presence of chronic ill health in their families performed significantly lower. Factors influencing medical school performance in developed countries had similar impact on medical students in a developing country. Social factors, unique to the country, also play a role in medical student performance.

Academic and non-academic predictors of success on the Nottingham undergraduate medical course 1970-1995

“…Finally, it is of note that whilst taking deferred entry appeared to be a negative predictor of success for the whole 21 years (Table 5), this was not the case for the more recent 5‐year cohort. Speculatively, this might be because taking a gap year is now much more commonplace and thus is less likely to reflect uncertainty about whether medicine is the correct career choice.…”

Personality and performance of preclinical medical students

“…This study shows no extremes in scores in any of the personality factors and minor variations in personality could influence academic performance. However, these findings may be confounded by other factors influencing academic performance such as premedical achievement, competence in English, mode of learning and family or social factors (Alfayez et al 1990; Biggs et al 1991; Parker 1993). It would be useful to address such issues in relation to students' academic performance in future.…”

Academic and socio-demographic factors influencing students’ performance in a new Saudi medical school

“…Different studies investigated factors that may affect academic performance during students' progress in medical schools. These studies have shown that the factors influencing students' GPA may include students' proficiency in English, student's self motivation, applying time managing skills, learning style, type of study references, study skills and socioeconomic status of students (Ahmed et al 1988;AlFayez et al 1990;Sansgiry et al 2006;Sleight & Mavis 2006;Wen-Bin 2008;Gurpinar et al 2010;Amrai et al 2011). Betts & Morell (1999) investigated different factors which may affect the undergraduate GPA.…”