The Relationship between Psychological Characteristics and Academic Achievement in Medical Students

Park, Chan Won; Park, Sang Hag; Cho, Yong Rae

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Several psychological characteristics of medical students were investigated, the relationhip between these characteristics and academic achievement was identified, and futhermore some significant predictors of their academic achievement were explored. METHOD: Subjects were a total of 489 medical students, 1st, 2nd, 3rd year in Chosun university as of in 1998. We administered self-report questionnaires including age, sex, grade failure, and transfer experience. And Beck Depression Inventory, Achievement Self-Discrepancy Scale, Self-Efficacy Scale, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory(state) Test Anxiety Scale, and the Inventory of Performance Anxiety were handed out to them on April 1998. After the semester, we examined the academic achievement according to grade point average. Pearson's correlations were calculated to explore the relationships between grade failure and other psychological variables, as well as the relationships between academic achievement and other psychological variables. The amount that academic achievement was explained by the psychological variables was obtained using multiple regression analysis. RESULT: 1)In 489 students, grade failure was 168(34.3%) non-failure was 321(65.7%) and transfer was 33(6.7%) 2)While G.P.A., performance anxiety, and self-efficacy, respectively, were negatively correlated with the failure, test anxiety was positively correlated with the grade failure. There were no statistically significant correlations between grade failure and depression, self-discrepancy, or state anxiety. 3)Academic achievement was positively correlated with both gender and self-efficacy, whereas it was negatively correlated with depression, self-discrepancy, test anxiety, and state anxiety, respectively. Female students were better than males in academic achievement. 4)The amount that age, gender, grade failure, transfer, depression, self-discrepancy, test anxiety, state anxiety, performance anxiety, and self-efficacy accounted for academic achievement was 10.86% totally.
CONCLUSION
Gender, grade failure, and depression in medical students affected their academic achievement significantly.