Factors Affecting Academic Performance in Anatomical Sciences at a South African University: Students’ Perspectives

Abstract A major goal of higher education is to create an environment conducive to quality student learning. Medical practitioners should possess a sound knowledge of anatomy to enable them to diagnose patients accurately and treat them successfully. Studies have reported a decline in the knowledge of anatomy acquired by students, recent medical graduates and newly qualified medical trainees. Various interdependent factors—individual, organisational, environmental, and relating to academic programmes—have been reported to influence first-year students’ academic performance. The study reported on aimed to obtain the perspectives of first-year medical students at a South African university on the effect of individual, organisational, environmental and academic programme factors on their academic performance in anatomical sciences. The research was designed as a descriptive, exploratory study that used a self-administered questionnaire with both quantitative and qualitative components. The questionnaires were administered manually to 133 first-year medical students to obtain their perspectives on the effect of selected personal, institution/faculty, course/module and curriculum factors on their academic performance. Factors that had a positive effect on their academic performance were personal motivation, academic ability, intelligence, academic environment, the outcomes-based curriculum, and the organisation and layout of the module; while factors that had a negative effect were workload, load of independent study, difficulty of content, difficulty of language used in study material, and assessment. The study found that certain factors had both a positive and a negative effect on academic performance. The results can be used to address problematic areas of the module to improve academic performance.