Browsing by Subject "Academic performance"

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    Factors influencing university female students' response to cyberbullying and effects on academic performance
    (2022) Mataga, Vimbayi Theresa; Kyobe, Michael
    Cyberbullying is a form of bullying that is rapidly on the increase. Cyberbullying continues to affect students today. Although studies on cyberbullying and school pupils have been done, a few studies mainly focus on how it affects the category of female students as well as their academic achievements. In previous studies, there have been limited theory to support and explain the severity of this phenomenon towards the female gender as several studies record a higher number in female victims than male victims. Therefore, this research further investigates the aspects of cyberbullying and female victimization. This study focuses on cyberbullying in a South African university. This research also highlights some factors that lead to female victimization. With the use of literature on cyberbullying and victimization, the researcher formulated a model to guide this research. This model was formulated on the assumption that a cyber-victim's academic performance may be determined by how they would have been greatly affected by being bullied. However, the extent to which a victim is affected by cyberbullying was determined by three factors, that is their age, gender and self-control. The factors mentioned were identified through a literature review. The proposed model was tested using a survey involving 262 female university students from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. The collected data was captured on excel and analyzed through the use of Statistica. The findings also revealed that the learners were frequent users of social media and digital devices which could have been the leading cause of them being vulnerable to cyberbullying. Analysis also showed that self-control had a significant influence on how affected learners responded to cyberbullying, whilst age had no significant influence on how learners responded to being bullied. How individuals responded to being bullied had an influence on their academic performance as those who responded negatively to cyberbullying produced poor academic results as compared to those who were not negatively affected. Given that, learning institute authorities can use knowledge obtained in this study to intervene where possible.
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    Measuring the impact of educational interventions on the academic performance of Academic Development Students in second-year microeconomics
    (Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2015-05-28) Smith, Leonard; Ranchhod, Vimal
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    Open Access
    Student debt and academic performance: a quantitative analysis at the University of Cape Town
    (2026) Ngobese, Lungelo Mthunzi; Carpenter, Riley
    Introduction: The presence of differential pass rates related to race, gender, socioeconomic background, and other contributing factors has marred the higher education landscape. Left unaddressed, these differential pass rates threaten students' throughput and the maximisation of their academic potential. Literature: Literature that explores the influence of these variables on academic performance presents contradictory views on the ability of some variables to affect academic outcomes, while providing unanimous perspectives on other variables' influence on academic performance. Examples of the former include the effects of gender, student debt and mental health on academic performance, while an example of the latter is the influence of race. Research aims: This study aimed to analyse whether there is an association between student debt and academic performance at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Additionally, this study sought to determine whether other observation-specific factors, alongside student debt, contribute to students' academic performance. The following research questions were posed: Is there an association between student debt and academic performance at UCT? Are there other observation-specific factors that contribute to students' academic performance at UCT? Methodology: Guided by Astin's (1993) Input-Environment-Output Model as the theoretical framework of the study, the research questions were answered quantitatively by collecting data at UCT from 2021 to 2023 (N = 88 626). The sample (n = 13 580) was subjected to a Pearson's correlation test, a multiple linear regression, and unpaired t-tests. Findings: The study revealed that at UCT, there is an association between student debt and academic performance with a weak correlation. Furthermore, the study identified that other input factors are also associated with academic performance. All findings were found to be statistically significant. Significance of the study: The results of this study are crucial for identifying the key factors that hinder students' academic performance, with the aim of developing targeted remedial interventions. This is particularly important in instances where large gaps in the grade-point average scores were observed. The study contributes to a renewed understanding of the influence of input factors on academic performance within the existing body of literature and offers novel insights into the impact of student debt on academic performance across a large sample. Limitation: The study was conducted at UCT (over one higher education institution (HEI)) which was purposefully selected by the researcher. Therefore, the results of the study are not generalisable to other HEIs.