A Systematic Review of the Evaluation of Academic Decline in Medical Students

Students’ academic decline is one of the major problems of higher education institute in the country. For this reason، many studies have been performed on this subject، but they have achieved different results. This study aims to collect and compare researches carried out nationwide on this subject. Using the information on online systems and databases such as Iranmedex، Sid، Magiran، PubMed، Web of Science، Google Scholar، and Science Direct Eric، the keywords «Medical students»، «educational failure»، «academic growth» and «academic achievement» were searched. The papers were divided into two categories of related and unrelated. From the total of 152 papers the irrelevant articles were eliminated، and from the 32 remaining papers only 9 articles had the required criteria for the study. In terms of content analysis، sex، accommodating in dormitory، employment، marital status، age، pass rate، noticeable gap between acquiring diploma and university entrance were considered as affecting factors on academic decline. These factors can be considered as effective factors in academic decline since they are common in previous published articles. However، in these articles academic decline determinants are different and no specific cut point has been defined. Due to the importance of the subject and its effects on academic decline it is recommended that it be specified.