Abstract

VELEZ VAN MEERBEKE, Alberto  and  ROA GONZALEZ, Claudia Natalí. Factors associated with academic performance in medical students. Educ. méd. [online]. 2005, vol.8, n.2, pp.24-32. ISSN 1575-1813.

Objectives: To determine and evaluate factors that affect academic performance in first semester medicine students. Methodology: The population was characterized in a search for factors that would later be studied in order to determine statistical association and prediction of final academic performance, using a logistic regression model. Results: Eighty students, aged between 17 and 18, were analysed. The majority were women, from Bogotá, from mixed (i.e. not single-sex), private and monolingual schools. The group was homogeneous in terms of demographic, social and cultural factors, and of schooling and motivation. Features of interfamilial violence, alcohol and cigarette consumption (but not psychoactive drug use) were detected. The results obtained in the differential and general learning aptitude tests (BADyGs) were low. Factors associated with poor academic performance were: No interest in reading as a pastime; interfamilial violence; a history of smoking marijuana; mixed educational background; no history of premedical studies; economic dependence on one of the parents. Grades in biology and biochemistry and the quarterly average grades were the best predictors. The best predictor of poor academic performance when controlled by other factors included in the model was the quarterly average, and the best predictor of failing the academic semester was the biochemistry laboratory grade. Conclusions: Although prior factors may explain academic performance before admission to Medical school, it is important to evaluate the performance during the first semester to identify cases in which rapid intervention is required in order to avoid academic failure.

Keywords : Medical Education; academic performance; academic failure; academic success; CAGE; BADyG.

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