Evaluating Individual and Educational Characteristics Affecting the Academic Achievement of Dentistry Students at University of Medical Sciences of Yazd in 2014-2015

The academic status of the students is regarded as an important issue in the educational activities. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effective factors on the academic achievement of dentistry students at Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences of Yazd.

This descriptive cross-Sectional study was carried out on 200 students from Shahid Sadoughi Dentistry School of Yazd in 2014 using the census method. All students with a GPA equal to or over 15 were considered as successful students and those with an average less than 14 were identified as unsuccessful students in regard with academic achievement. The study data were collected using a valid and reliable questionnaire, which were then analyzed using the SPSS software (ver 17) via Chi-Square test.

The results showed, a significant difference was observed between the two groups of students in terms of individual characteristics (such as gender, student status, place of residence, employment, smoking, family income, mother’s education level) and academic characteristics (such as time gap between high school graduation and entering the college, high school GPA, student ranking in Concourse exam, number of educational units completed and the educational failures)(P<0.05), while no significant difference was detected between the two groups in age, marital status, education as well as parents’ occupation (P>0.05).

The findings of the present study revealed that   successful and unsuccessful students are significantly different  in regard with individual and academic features. Moreover, the role of such factors as psycho-social factors are recommended to be evaluated in the future studies.