Factors Affecting Students' Performance

Determinants of students' performance have been the subject of ongoing debate among educators, academics, and policy makers. There have been many studies that sought to examine this issue and their findings point out to hard work, previous schooling, parents’ education, family income and self motivation as factors that have a significant effect on the students GPA. Most of those studies have focused on students' performance in the U.S. and Europe. However, since cultural differences may play a role in shaping the factors that affect students' performance, it is very important to examine those relevant factors to the UAE society. The aim of this study is to investigate the socio-economic characteristics of students of the College of Business and Economics-UAEU in relation to these students' performance and taking into account variables pertaining to the UAE Society. Using a sample of 864 CBE student and regression analysis, our results show that the most important factor that affects student's performance is the student's competence in English. Besides competence in English, students who participate in class discussion and those on leave outperform other students. The factors that negatively affect student's performance the most are missing too many lectures and living in crowded household. The results also show that non-national students outperform national students and female students outperform their male counterpart.