Factors Affecting Academic Failure from Students’ Perspectives

Background: Students’ academic failure is one of the educational problems causing the loss of allocated resources.Objectives: This study aimed to assess the factors affecting the academic failure of students and their viewpoints regarding the factors affecting educational achievement at Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Guilan, Iran.Methods: The present cross-sectional analytical study was conducted on 375 students in medical, nursing, and other related fields. A valid and reliable multipart questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. Based on the obtained results, the criteria for academic failure were extracted. Then, due to abnormal data distribution, Spearman nonparametric statistical test was used to analyze the data using both SPSS software (version 23) and GraphPad Prism software (version 7).Results: According to the obtained results, the frequency of academic failure in the study population was 25.6%. Moreover, 28.46% of the students were satisfied with their field of study. Academic failure showed the strongest relationships with gender, regularity, and precision in the study. Furthermore, the most effective factors in educational achievement from the students’ viewpoints were student motivation, professor’s mastery over the subject, and student occupational future.Conclusion: It is necessary to create a system to precisely investigate students’ academic failure and counseling needs to help them if necessary.