Abstract

Introduction: The goal of medical education is to train students to become knowledgeable, skillful and professional physicians. Academic performance is contributed by many factors. Understanding and addressing these factors would help the medical students improve their performance.

Aims: To determine the factors influencing academic achievement of medical students in a medical college.

Settings and Design: Cross sectional study conducted in a medical college.

Methods and Material: 224 medical students were administered a pre tested self administered questionnaire. Those, who achieved less than 30% marks in sendup exams were grouped as “low achievers” (LA). The factors associated with low academic achievement were identified.

Statistical Analysis Used: Data entry and analysis was performed using Epidata Entry, Epidata Analysis and Epi Info softwares. Univariate analysis and Logistic regression analysis was performed.

Results: It was found that 59 (26.3%) medical students had low academic achievement. The male to female ratio was 2:1. The average plus 2 marks of low and high achievers, were 82.58 and 86.66 percents respectively. The difference was found to be highly significant. Mean duration of Internet surfing (minutes) for other than the study purpose was 194.14 ± 201.58 among LA  as compared to 125.89 ± 113.26 in high achievers. The difference was statistically highly significant.

Conclusions: Male gender, low premedical PLUS 2 marks percentage, prolonged internet surfing for other than study purposes were important risk factors for low achievement as shown by univariate and multivariate analysis

Keywords: Indian Medical students, low achievers, life style factors, plus 2 marks.