Factors Impacting General Mathematics Success for First-Year Business’ Students: Evidence from Albania

Abstract

One of the benefits of good education is that it enables individuals to contribute to the development and improvement in the quality of their life, their communities and the nation as a whole. Students’ achievements in mathematics in high school are prerequisites for admission into university and have a significant effect on their academic performance in university. In addition, mathematical and quantitative skills create possibility for better chances for employment, higher wages and higher productivity on job. Thus, mathematics learning and students’ performance in mathematics receive considerable attention from educators, teachers and parents and is important to identify the factors that could influence students’ mathematics achievement to help them improve and make substantial academic progress. This study aims to investigate factors associated with business student’ success in General Mathematics course. The population of the study consists of business students attending first-year at the Faculty of Economy, at University of Tirana for 2012/2013 academic year. Using the simple random sampling, 143 business students were randomly selected and completed a questionnaire during the first week of June 2013. The questionnaire included questions about student characteristics, family characteristics and high school characteristics. The binary logistic regression was used to estimate the impact of lecture attendance, study hours, working status, average grade in mathematics in high school, father education level, mother education level and monthly family income on final examination success. The results indicated that lecture attendance, average grade in mathematics in high school, study hours and working status were statistically significant variables that influenced their final success in General Mathematics course. These findings suggest that, primarily, institution and lecturers must find out ways to increase student performance, and to motivate students for better performance. Enhancing student participation should be a crucial aspect of administration, in order to improve performance. At the same time, the lecturer should also create a good learning environment, to motivate students and engage their interest about the course.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n2p11