Factors associated with student's academic performance in tertiary institutions in Uganda, a case study of Makerere University.

Abstract

The main objective for this study was to analyze the factors associated with students’ academic performance at Makerere University, and a descriptive-cross-sectional study design was adopted. In univariate analysis, frequency tables of all the variables were designed and 59.2% were males, 20.4%of the respondents were from COBAMS, and 46.9% of the respondents were third year students. More than half of the respondents (60.2%) were involved in peer groups, 42.3% of the respondents agreed that the quality of lecturing is high, 58.2%of the respondents were not involved in any relationship, 57.7% perceived that there’s low gender influence on their academic performance, 46.9% agreed that there’s a high influence on their academic performance by their parents’ education status. Most of the respondents agreed that the occupation of their parents has a low influence on their academic performance (43.9%), 59.7%agreed that parents’ income highly influence their academic performance, and 34.2% were from families with 6-10 members which was the highest proportion of the respondents and finally, 60.2% of the respondents had a second-class upper degree, 14.8% had a first-class degree whereas 25.0% had a second lower degree. In the bi-variate analysis, all predictor variables had a significant relationship with the dependent variable at 5% level of significance (P<0.05). In the multivariate analysis/ regression analysis, findings showed that; only year of study of the respondent was significant at p<0.05 whereby, being in second year increases the log odds of having a higher CGPA 30.685 times compared to being in the fifth year (p = 0.035). And being in third year of study increases the log odds of having a higher CGPA 23.4 times compared to being in the fifth year (p = 0.046). Study findings revealed a need to; i) investigate into the factors that affect the performance of students in higher years of study, ii) the university to devise means of paying special attention to students from disadvantaged social economic backgrounds.