1. Introduction

Students are the key assets of universities. The students’ performance plays an important role in producing best quality graduates who will become great leaders and manpower for the country thus responsible for the country’s economic and social development. Academic achievement is one of the major factors considered by employers in hiring workers especially for the fresh graduates. Thus, students have to put the greatest effort in their study to obtain good grades and to prepare themselves for future opportunities in their career at the same time to fulfill the employer’s demand.

According to Minnesota (2007) “the higher education performance is depends upon the academic performance of graduate students. Durden and Ellis quoted Staffolani and Bratti, (2002) who observed that “the measurement of students previous educational outcomes are the most important indicators of students future achievement; this refers that the higher the previous appearance, the better will the student’s academic performance in future endeavors be.

Graetz (1995) conducted a study on socio-economic status of the parents of students and concluded that the socio economic background has a great impact on student’s academic performance. It has been main source of educational imbalance among students and students’ academic success. Considine and Zappala (2002) also having the same views as Graetz (1995). In their study on the influence of social and economic disadvantage in the academic performance of school students noticed, they have stated that parents or guardians who have social, educational and economic advantage definitely strengthen the level of their child’s success in future.

Nevertheless, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has identified problems that run simultaneously with the present tertiary school curriculum in the country (SEAMEO- INNOTECH, 2003). Among the school- related factors found are unqualified and poorly trained teachers, inadequate facilities, and dilapidated instructional materials. Non-school factors include poverty, low educational attainment and illiteracy of parents and poor health and nutrition (Gato et. al 2014).

Marquez (2009) also pointed out that a student who is successful in his desired career has good study habits. In line with this, she stated that students should apply these habits to all of their classes. She also suggested that the students should not try to study all the subjects in a single period.

In computer science related courses, evidence confirms the importance of parental need analysis, along with understanding what parents already do with their children and how they are most likely to respond positively to attempts to engage them further in their children’s learning. (Goodall et al 2010).

Parents’ involvement has been defined and measured in multiple ways, including activities that parents engage in at home and at school and positive attitudes parents have towards education. Several studies found that increased frequency of activities were associated with higher levels of child misbehavior in the classroom (Schlee, Mullis and Schriner, 2008, Carter and Winsler, 2008; Mehrafza 2004).

Mays (1946) greatly emphasized the importance of having qualified teachers in the field of teaching, and said that success of any program is conditioned by the ability of the teacher to teach. If there is failure at this point, the whole structure fails. Hence, the implementation, selection, preparation, and supervision of education will be affected. Moreover, Dayad (2000) mentioned that good teachers are constantly on the alert for methods and instructional materials that will make learning meaningful. With the wise selection and use of a variety of instructional materials or audio-visual materials, experiences may be provided to develop understanding.

The factors affecting a student’s academic performance arise from several reasons. Thinking skills primarily affect student’s learning faculties if they do not learn what they need to learn. If teachers do not know how to catch the attention of a student, the more the student cannot make himself attentive to that subject. The student gets lazy because it has a subject that they think that it’s a subject he perceives to be not so relevant to their course; nonetheless, they still study it. This research was conducted among nursing students of Benguet State University, La Trinidad Benguet to determine the factors that affect the academic performance of the nursing students which may consequently help in the improvement of the students and teachers alike.

The study aimed to determine: 1.) What is the level of impact of the different factors on the academic performance of student nurses? 2) Which indicator among each of the five (5) factors has the highest impact on student nurses’ academic performance? 3) Which set of factors has the greatest effect on the academic performance of fourth year student nurses of Benguet State University.

The result of this study may benefit the students by allowing them to understand better the factors that can affect their academic performance. They may be able to improve their academic performance with the findings that are established by this study. With this study’s insights, the parents may be able to understand and help their children regarding their school matters and give them support. For the teachers, this study may help them to recognize problems encountered by the students that may pose an effect in their performance. They may find alternative actions on how to handle their students. For the school administrators, they may be able to promote thinking skills assessment in their school, letting their teachers understand the influences of their student’s preferred learning styles that will promote adequate learning opportunities and effective instructions.

Teaching is the most dynamic process in the life of a teacher, and learning is likewise the most dynamic process in the life of the students. How these two processes are implemented to produce a balanced and good result for both the teacher and the learner have been the framework for this study.

In the paradigm of the study, the independent variables are the senior student nurses themselves. The dependent variables include factors affecting the academic performance. Factors include: a) personal conditions, b) study habits, c) home-related aspects, d) school-related aspects, and e) teacher-related factors.

2. Methodology

2.1. Research Design

Quantitative type of research was used in this study. The researcher used the descriptive-survey method of the research in the conduct of the study.

2.2. Locale of the Study

The study was conducted in Benguet State University-College of Nursing, Km. 5 La Trinidad Benguet.

2.3. Respondents of the Study

Respondents are the 74 fourth year nursing students consisting 8 males and 66 females.

2.4. Instrumentation

Total enumeration sampling was used. Self-reporting questionnaire was used to gather data on the factors affecting nursing students along personal conditions, study habits, home-related aspects, school-related aspects, and teacher-related aspects of fourth year student nurses. The instrument is already considered valid and reliable since it was already used by Bastian (1995) and used as a reference by Chadya (2008) with the research entitled, “Factors affecting the academic performance of the intermediate grade pupils in Filipino at Easter College, Baguio City”.

2.5. Data Gathering Procedure

The questionnaires were distributed to the respondents after thoroughly explaining the Tabulations were done from the answers to determine: 1) what is the level of impact of the different factors on the academic performance of student nurses; 2) which indicator among the five (5) factors has the highest impact on the student nurses’ performance; 3) which set of factors has the greatest effect on the academic performance of fourth year student nurses of Benguet State University. Furthermore, request for cooperation and assurance that all information gathered will be treated strictly with confidentiality.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Factors Affecting Academic Performance of Student Nurses

Table 1 shows the set of five factors with their indicators. The indicators for each category were arranged from highest to lowest mean.

3.1.1. Personal Condition

In the subset personal condition, the indicator with the highest mean was ‘feeling sleepy in class’ with high impact. Meanwhile, the indicator with the lowest mean was ‘difficulty in breathing’ which was found to have the lowest influence on the academic performance of the student nurses.

3.1.2. Study Habits

For the items included in the study habits section, all are found to be highly impactful with the indicator ‘I study only when there is a quiz’ having the highest mean. One indicator though was determined to belong to the lower range, the item ‘I copy the assignments of friends’.

3.1.3. Home-Related Aspect

All home-related factors were discovered to have a low influence on student nurses’ academic performance. The indicator with the highest mean in this subset was ‘I live far from school’ and the indicator with the lowest mean was ‘I have many brothers and sisters’.

3.1.4. School-related Aspect

Among the school-related factors, all indicators fell in the range of high impact with the indicator ‘the time schedule is followed’ posing as the most impactful. One indicator, ‘location of classrooms’, was found to belong to the low impact range.

3.1.5. Teacher-Related Aspect

In the teacher-related aspects, the item ‘teacher has mastery of the subject matter’ had the greatest mean with a very high impact. The rest of the indicators were deemed to be of high impact with the indicator ‘teacher is always late’ having the lowest mean.

Fredriksen, Rhodes, Reddy, and Way (2004) conducted a longitudinal study on the effects of adolescent sleep loss during middle school. The participants’ sleep loss had a relationship with more depressive symptoms, lower self-esteem, and lower grades. Wolfson and Carskadon (1998, p. 1) agreed and said, “The way adolescents sleep critically influences their ability to think, behave, and feel during daytime hours.” These findings are in alignment with the present study’s findings whereby feeling sleepy in class deemed to be the most impactful on academic performance among the personal conditions category.

Being hungry in class came in second in the same subset. This is supported by previous research conducted by Deloitte and released by Share Our Strength which shows that, on average, students who eat school breakfast achieve 17.5% higher scores on standardized math tests, attend 1.5 more days of school per year. Students who attend class more regularly are 20% more likely to graduate from high school.

Robert Bjork and fellow PT blogger Nate Kornell have explored some of the study habits of college students in a 2007 paper in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Research on memory provides a number of important suggestions about the most effective ways to study. One of the most important tips is that students should study by testing themselves rather than just reading over the material. It is also important to study over a period of days rather waiting until the last minute to study. Kornell and Bjork's studies suggest that only about 2/3 of college students routinely quiz themselves, and a majority of students study only one time for upcoming exams (Markman 2012). These findings are consistent with this study’s findings wherein it was discovered that among factors related to study habits; the indicator ‘I only study when there is a quiz’ came out as the most impactful.

Another study was conducted in a context similar to the study in Iran by Zarei (2008). This study intended to examine the effect of frequent testing on Iranian English student’s performance and classroom attendance. The results revealed that the more frequently students were exposed to quizzes; the better their performance appeared to be. Moreover, the results showed that the administration of frequent quizzes had a positive correlation with classroom attendance.

Table 1. Factors Affecting the Academic Performance of Fourth Year Student Nurses

Zappala (2002) quoted Sparkles (1999) whose findings showed that school environment and teachers’ expectations from their students also have strong influence on student performance. This is consistent with the present study’s findings whereby it was found that availability of school programs, library references, comfortable classrooms and fast internet access were all deemed to be of high impact by the student nurses on their academic performance. Moreover, Kwesiga (2002) approved that performance of the students is also influenced by the school in which they studied; however, he also asserted that the number of facilities a school offers usually determine the quality of the school, which in turn affect the performance and accomplishment of its students. Sentamu (2003) argue that schools influence educational process in content organization, teacher and teaching learning and in the end evaluation of all. All these educationists and researchers agreed with the principle that schools put strong effect on academic performance and educational attainment of students.

Teachers’ effectiveness has been accepted as a multidimensional construct since it measures a variety of different aspects of teaching such as: subject mastery, effective communication, lesson preparation and presentation (Onyeachu, 1996).

Bangbade (2004) found that out that teachers’ attribute have significant relationship with students’ academic performance. Such attributes according to Bangbade (2004) include teachers’ knowledge of the subject matter, communication ability, emotional stability, good human relationship and interest in the job. This is in support of the present study’s findings which show that teacher-related factors were deemed to be the most impactful category of factors that pose an impact on student nurses’ academic performance. Rena (2000) further explained that for students to perform well in any examination one of the prerequisites is that their teachers must know them and have profound knowledge of their state of physical, intellectual and psychological readiness.

3.2. Summary of Factors Affecting Academic Performance of Student Nurses

Table 2 shows the summary of the factors affecting academic performance of fourth year student nurses. The results show that the set of factors with the highest influence on the academic performance of student nurses are the teacher-related aspects with the highest mean. It is followed by study habits and school-related aspects, both equally rated as highly impactful. Conversely, the set of factors with low impacts are personal conditions and home-related aspects.

Teacher quality matters. In fact, it is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement. Moreover, teacher compensation represents a significant public investment: in 2002 alone, the United States invested $192 billion in teacher pay and benefits. Given the size of this investment, there is remarkably little research to guide such critical decisions as whom to hire, retain, and promote. In the absence of a strong, robust, and deep body of research, the debate in this field is largely ideological (Rice 2003).

The recent federal education legislation, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), further underlines the importance of having a high-quality teacher in every classroom in every school. The Bush Administration’s proposal, which specifies what defines a “highly qualified” teacher, is based on the premise that teacher excellence is vital to realizing improved student achievement. This legislation, along with typical hiring and compensation systems, assumes that years of teaching experience, teacher certification, engagement in certain types of coursework, and performance on standardized assessments are indicators of high-quality teachers (Rice 2003).

Table 2. Summary of the Set of Factors Affecting the Academic Performance of Fourth Year Student Nurses

4. Conclusions

Analysis of the results of this study indicated the following findings. The first two (2) items in the personal conditions category are found to be of high impact. Meanwhile, the last three (3) items in the same subset fell in the low range. On the other hand, all indicators included in the category of study habits were considered highly impactful except for the last item which was ranked rather lower. Student nurses have been discovered to have rated home-related factors as low in impact. In school-related aspects, the first six (6) items are of high impact; conversely, the 7^th indicator was rated low. Among the teacher-related-factors, only item 1 was established to be of very high impact and the rest posed to be highly impactful. In the subset of personal factors, feeling sleepy in class in class was rated to be of highest impact. The indicator ‘I study only when there is a quiz’ was determined to have the highest impact among study habits. Meanwhile, among the home-related aspects, ‘I live far from school’ was found to be the most impactful. The indicator ‘the time schedule is followed’ was determined to have the greatest effect among the school-related items. Highest of impact among the five domains were the teacher-related factors.

Based from the findings, it was concluded that several factors pose a high impact on the academic performance of student nurses, with teacher-related factors topping the list. Among the five (5) domains, study habits and school-related factors fall behind the teacher-related factors. Nonetheless, both categories are still deemed to be highly impactful. Conversely, personal conditions and home-related factors pose little effect on student nurses’ academic performance.

The following are recommended: a) teachers should use varied strategies so as to improve the academic performance of the learners; b) teachers should undergo seminars on teaching strategies to improve classroom instruction; c) the researcher suggests a research specifying a subject in determining the factors affecting the academic performance of student nurses and adding respondents from level one to level three.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The researcher would like to express extreme gratitude and earnest appreciation to the following that provides assistance, support, encouragement and prayers extended for the accomplishment of the output.

To her research advisers, Mr. Lawrence C. Caranto and Mr. David Juan T. David, who rendered their time and guidance and suggestions that served as her motivation to do her best.

To the researchers’ families for their financial and moral support that helped them to successfully finish this research.

Most of all, to our loving Father, for answering her prayers, for the guidance, strength and protection despite all the obstacles that she met on her way to accomplish her output. All praise and glory are raised to Him.