Influence of Student Engagement on Academic Performance in Higher Education in Ghana

Abstract

Student engagement has been conceptualized to connote the things that students do and are made to do at school. Engaged students are willing to participate in routine activities that are sanctioned by the university such as going for lectures, adhering to university regulations, participating in group work and submitting assignments on time. Predominantly, student engagement has been denoted as students involving themselves in educational purposeful activities to enhance their academic success and personal development. Generally, the study investigated the factors that influenced student engagement and explained how those factors in turn affected academic performance of students within the Ghanaian higher education context. The research objectives were to determine the sets of constructs that measured student engagement and analyze the relationships between the demographic characteristics (levels of students, age and sex) and the student engagement sub-variables. The research was also to investigate the relationship between student engagement and academic performance through the flow-efficacystudent engagement linkages model in higher education; and finally determine the relationship between student entrepreneurial activities and academic performance. The research was conducted from the positivist perspective. The quantitative cross-sectional survey strategy was used involving 449 students from level 200, 300 and 400 at the University of Professional Studies, Accra. The selection was done using the stratified simple random sampling and proportional techniques. The descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Findings showed that student learning experience (β= .185, p< .05), student experience with faculty (β= -.133, p< .05), academic challenge (β= .107, p< .05), lecturer feedback (β= .129, p< .05) and learning with peers significantly predicted student engagement. Conversely, campus environment (β= -.057, p=ns) did not predict student engagement. Student engagement significantly influenced students GPA (β= .298, t (448) = 6.573, p< .05). Students participated in activities that challenged them to learn to meet their lecturer expectations (Academic challenge, Mean= 3.861, SD=.665). Students rated their experiences with faculty (Mean= 3.293, SD= .670) as the least dimension of the student engagement variable. Student engagement positively and significantly influenced academic performance. Although, majority of the students did not engage in entrepreneurial activities (Mean=2.605, SD=.884), results indicated that students who engaged in entrepreneurial activities were likely not to do well academically (r= -.182, p< .05). The study concluded that student engagement has significant influence on academic performance of students in higher education in Ghana. The study recommended the need to encourage students to form peer-counseling groups that could be used as vehicle to orient students toward good practices that could help them to succeed academically while reducing the tendencies of negative peer influences. The study also recommended continuous training for lecturers, faculty officers, and staff of the university to intentionally provide care and attention to the students to build a culture of trust necessary for engagement. Similarly, students should be encouraged to discuss their academic progress with their course advisors at least once in every semester.