Students´ academic achievement according to their average, admission test results and responsibility level

A student´s academic achievement is determined by a wide range of factors in which past evaluation results, responsible attitudes and thinking skills play an important role. This is why the academic administration board of Pedagogy at Universidad Panamericana decided to analyze if the academic results obtained by students who were not reaching the school´s standards, were directly related to their responsibility and admission´s test global and logical-mathematical thinking scores, in order to find opportunity areas for improvement and develop strategies for preventing desertion. The National Test for Higher Education Admission (EXANI-II for its Spanish initials) is a selection test designed by the National Evaluation Center for Higher Education (CENEVAL for its Spanish initials) in Mexico. It aims to measure undergraduates basic knowledge and abilities when applying for a professional program. It is the test that Universidad Panamericana uses to determine which are the applicants with most success possibilities for each program. It evaluates, among other aspects, logical-mathematical thinking, which interests especially for this study´s objectives. The students selected for this study were those with a general average under 7.9 after the first evaluation period. Their results were related to their global and logical-mathematical thinking scores obtained in their EXANI-II test when they applied for the program and to their responsibility scores obtained in a psychometric test designed by the University’s Psychopedagogical Department, which was also part of their application process. This was repeated after the second and final evaluation periods. Statistic results showed that there is a direct relation between students´ low academic performance, low logical-mathematical thinking skills and low responsibility. This kind of studies, even though specific for the case, are useful to sustain why academic assessment services must complement a university´s work in order to define strategies that respond to students´ opportunity areas for improvement and therefore help them obtain better achievement results. ©2013 IATED Academy