Ijsser 08 190

International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research
ISSN: 2455-8834
Volume:08, Issue:09 "September 2023"
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT PERFORMANCE
The Doan Truong and Xiem Thuy Cao
National Economics University Hanoi Vietnam
DOI: 10.46609/IJSSER.2023.v08i09.006 URL: https://doi.org/10.46609/IJSSER.2023.v08i09.006
Received: 2 September 2023 / Accepted: 18 September 2023 / Published: 20 September 2023
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to examine factors influencing undergraduate student

performance. Two research questions are what student performance is, and what factors
influence student performance in public universities in Hanoi. The research model was tested on
survey data using Smart PLS software version 4.0.8.9. Five verified factors influencing student
performance include student self-motivation, student self-efficacy, engagement in a university
environment, student satisfaction with the university, and luck. In addition, one controlled
variable that negatively affects student performance is club membership. Based on the findings
several managerial implications were proposed. This research contributes information on student
performance to the literature.
Keywords: Student performance, engagement in university life, student self-efficacy
1. Introduction
Human resource quality is one of the most important factors determining the prosperity of a
nation. The development of high-quality human resources is impossible without education. In
recent years, the perspective of education systems has changed from “How should we teach
students” to “How should we help students learn”, the purpose of this article is to answer two
questions, what is undergraduate student achievement or performance, and what factors affect
undergraduate student performance. The article's main parts are a literature review, an empirical
analysis of factors influencing undergraduate student performance in public universities in
Hanoi, and management implications.
2. Literature review and the research model
2.1. Literature review
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Student performance is a complex concept that is hard to find a uniform definition(Mills et al.,
2009; Toutkoushian et al., 2001). There are various definitions of undergraduate student
performance in literature. Kim et al. (2010)define college success as “acceptable grade averages,
retention toward a degree and attainment of productive life skills" (p. 112).Hunter (2006)
considers college success as the whole student development and having many dimensions
beyond cognitive and academic factors. Finn and Rock (1997) argue that the academic
achievement of students is to graduate on time with good grades. The definitions mentioned
above refer to college student success as not grades, but emotional, social, cognitive, and
academic development. The factors influencing student success have been interpreted by various
theories or models. The expectancy-value theory holds that motivation is an important factor for
student success. Motivation is the direct source of expectations for success (Wigfield, 1994).
According to Tinto's model of academic and social integration, engaging in a new environment,
the university environment affects student success. The more engaged students are in university,
the higher their achievement is (Tinto & Pusser, 2006). Another theory of student success is the
achievement goal theory, which emphasizes setting goals, a high goal set leads to high
achievement(Canfield & Zastavker, 2010)
According to Aydin (2017), personal factors affecting student success include own self-efficacy,
learning organization and learning attention, time use, communication in the classroom, and
engagement in college life. Pritchard and Wilson (2003) argue that due to the fact that students
have to adjust to the university environment, emotional and social factors are crucial to student
success, and so do psychological factors. According to Kuh et al. (2005), factors affecting
student success are student behavior, attitudes, expectations, and engagement in university life.
Saud (2021) found that student achievement is mainly influenced by external support from
family, friends, and society, followed by decision-making and determination, ambition, hard
work, and perseverance. The main factors hindering student success are discouragement
followed by irresponsibility, sloppiness, laziness, poor time management, failure, and frustration.
Changing the perspective of education systems from “How should we teach students” to “How
should we help students learn” so that they develop and maintain their achievements shows that
student achievement is relevant to the responsibility of the faculty and the school as a
whole(Hunter, 2006). Direct interaction between faculty and students results in an increase in
student achievements(Crisp et al., 2017).
According to Kuh (2001), student success is created by pre-university experience (background

and college readiness); student engagement (learning skills, engagement in social life and the
university environment); and graduate outcomes (grades and work-related issues).Kim et al.
(2010) clarify factors affecting the success of students into three groups, the first group of
variables is the learning outcome at high school, the second group of variables is demographical,
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the third group of variables is student individual characteristics or “psychosocial factors”.

According to Newton et al. (2008), psychological factors are attitudes, motivations, use of
campus resources, learning methods, etc. In addition, student learning outcomes also depend on
the level of student satisfaction with the university - satisfaction with faculty, quality of
programs, activities, and university environment, and overall satisfaction with life(Kuh et al.,
2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005).Cao and Truong (2022), confirm four factors affecting the
student's perceived learning outcomes, which are assessment of learning outcomes, facilities,
student interactions in the classroom, and student self-motivation. Nguyễn et al. (2017), found
that the level of study (what year student), gender, study time, grades, library, and internet use
for learning were factors affecting student success. Đặng (2017) pointed out that student self-
efficacy has a direct and positive influence on learning outcomes, class participation, and
interaction with lecturers on the subjects, and problems outside the subject (career, job...) do not
directly affect student achievement, however, has an indirect impact through the student self-
efficacy; The interaction with lecturers on subject-related issues (subject contents, assignments,
grades, tests...) has an insignificant effect on student learning outcomes and student self-efficacy.
Lê (2016), confirmed that factors affecting student learning outcomes were learning methods,
learning persistence, competition in learning, school impressions, school resources, and learning
motivation. A recent study by García y García (2021), of attribution, found that college students
attribute intelligence as the most important factor influencing their success. Gender differences,
through two expressions, calmness, and effort, also have an impact on student achievement. The
student success of male students is also influenced by efforts and good teachers, while female
students are also affected by liking the teacher, luck, and attention.
The attribution theory was developed by Heider (Heider, 1944; 1982). The essential of this
theory is that people tend to find causality to explain their own behavior, that of others, and
surrounding events. According to Kelley (1967), in order to interpret surrounding events and
make inferences, people create causal schemes taking into account three conditions, the
individual himself (internal attributes), influences (external attributes), and surrounding
circumstances.
The attribution theory does not necessarily find the actual cause of events but rather a subjective
causality. Attribution is a hedonic process, it depends on gender, age, and culture, and depends
on whether the attribution is made for one's own behavior or that of others (Đigić & Zdravković,
2019; Weiner, 2010b). In education, on both sides student or teacher, the reasons for student
success or failure are student self-efficacy, skills, intelligence, the difficulty of homework, and
characteristics of teachers and luck (Weiner, 1972). The attribution is conscious or unconscious,
it affects student achievement and therefore their motivation, feelings, behavior, and school
decisions. To understand the attribution made by students it is necessary to consider at least three

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variables involved in the causality scheming process. The first variable is the recognition that
attribution is subjective, showing bias, and according to(Weiner, 2010a), it is a hedonic process
that tends to find internal factors for the behavior of others and external factors for one's own
behavior. Regularly, success is said to be the result of efforts, and internal causes, while failure is
attributed to external causes such as luck. The second variable is relevant to students using
communications received from teachers to make comments and use them to explain their success
(Matteucci & Gosling, 2004) . The third variable is the management of impressions that students
make to influence others' beliefs about the cause and to seek justification, especially if academic
goals are not achieved. According to Weiner (2010a), attribution has at least four characteristics:
locus or location, controllability, stability, and globality. Locus or location is a fact that can be
attributed to internal or external factors. People who depend on the environment and others make
external attributions to things that happened to them. In contrast, those who trust their own
resources and can transform their environments consider what happens to them as a result of
their own actions. Controllability, there are causes that the actors can manage at will, while
others are beyond their control. If school failure is attributed to a lack of effort, students will
control their academic success, whereas if it is attributed to the teacher's characteristics, students
will hardly control their success or failure. Stability, the cause may be stable or unstable over
time. Things that are stable over time we can't change, that is, we can't change the cause to
change the result. Globality, causes can be generalized to situations. If students use luck to blame
their failures in school, they may use it to explain their failures in other circumstances.
2.2 Research model
Inherited previous studies, we propose the research model, as shown in Figure 1.
Student self-motivation
Motivation is the direct source of expectations. Students who have high expectations will aim to
achieve scholarships, satisfy their parents' expectations, improve themselves, have good jobs in
the future, and be able to achieve high academic results. Therefore, the hypothesis is:
H1: Student self-motivation is positively related to student performance.
Student self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is considered an internal factor, that means students can control on their own at
will, affecting their success. Students who have good intelligence and learning methods,
attention, can manage their time and actively exploit campus resources such as libraries and Wi-
Fi to connect to the internet for learning, do not have cheating intentions on exams, learn hard,
stay calm on tests and exams over the course will have good success. However, it should be

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noted that there are components of learning ability that can be changed, such as effort, proactive
behavior, and self-discipline, and things that are hard to change, such as intelligence. Good self-
efficacy will lead to good achievement. The hypothesis is
H2: Student self-efficacy is positively related to student performance.
Figure 1. Research model
University environment
The university environment is an external factor, beyond the control of students. The
environment can have a positive or negative impact on a student performance depending on the
specific circumstances. The university environment has an impact on student learning attention,
the implementation of time plans for learning and other activities may be hindered, peer pressure
on learning or trends in student life also affect student success, participating in clubs can take
time away from learning, while it has a positive impact on engaging into social life, tough family
situations that force students to take part-time jobs also affect student’s grades. It is hypothesized
H3: The university environment is positively or negatively related to student performance.

Student satisfaction with university
The level of student satisfaction with the university is an external factor affecting student
achievement, beyond the control of students. With good teachers, good programs, good activities

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for students and a good university environment, and a good life in general, student’s success will
likely be high. Therefore, we hypothesize
H4: The student satisfaction with university is positively related to student performance.
Luck
Luck is one of the factors influencing student success. In terms of scores, for students who are
fortunate to learn with good teachers, their exam questions often fall into sections they
thoroughly learned, have few health problems, and those related to personal feelings during
exam time will get high grades. Therefore, the hypothesis is
H5: The Luck is positively related to student performance.
3. Methodology
Five hypotheses were tested by a quantitative survey on the factors influencing student
performance, employing structural equation modeling. The research design is provided in the
following sections. First, the description of the development of the survey instrument is reported.
Second, the test of the measurement model is represented, which includes an estimation of
internal consistency and the convergent and discriminant validity of the instrument items, and the
report of scale reliability and validity data. This is followed by the structural modeling results.
Survey instrument
Based on the extensive literature review, we conducted the preliminary survey with which
students were asked to write down attributions to their achievements. 38 responses received are
useful references for designing a questionnaire. The first part of the questionnaire includes
questions about a participant's information and the second consists of five multivariate/item
scales measuring factors that affect student success, using a 5-point Likert scale with increasing
agreement from “Not agree at all” to “Completely agree”.
The main survey was conducted virtually using the Google Form application. The online address
(URL) of the survey is sent to the participants (students who studying in public universities in
Hanoi) via student email and uploaded to groups on social networks (Facebook, Zalo, MS
Teams, LMS...). Participants are informed that this survey is anonymous and information they
provide will always remain anonymous. Data for this research are collected from a non-
probability convenience sample. The survey was carried out from January to March 2023. 480
valid responses have been collected, fulfilling the conditions of sample size(Hair, 2014). The
sample’s characteristics are provided in Table 1.

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Table 1. Characteristics of the sample
Respondents Percentage
Sex Male 336 70%
Female 144 30%
Study level First-year students 271 56%
Sophomores, 189 39.4%
Third year 17 3.5%
Fourth-year students 3 0.6%
Education program Traditional 331 69%
Advanced and oriented 145 30,2%
Other 3 0,6%
Student residence Campus 427 89%
Non-campus 53 11%
Part-time job Yes 257 53,5%
No 223 46,5%
Club membership Yes 285 59,4%
No 195 40,6%
Student’s family residence Urban 220 45,8%
Rural 260 54,2%
Who finance student’s Parents 344 71,7%

studying
Student him/herself 8 1,7%
Parents and the student 122 25,4%

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Other 6 1,2%
Source: authors
Research methods
Structural equation model-based PLS methodology was applied to test the research model
represented in Figure 1, using SmartPLS software version 4.0.8.9.
Measurement model estimation
The data analysis started with model estimation. The measurement model was tested by
estimating the internal consistency and the convergent and discriminant validity of the
instrument items. If reliability measures were above the level recommended of .70 internal
consistency is verified(Fornell & Larcker, 1981; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). If individual
reflective measures correlate more than .70 with the construct they intend to measure then they
are considered to be reliable. Table 2 represents reliability measuresabove .70, ensuring
adequate internal consistency, and reliable individual reflective measures.
If the item loads highly (loading is greater than .50) on their associated factors, convergent
validity is demonstrated. The AVE ranging from 0.562 to 0.92 (Table 2) were above the
threshold of .05(Chin, 1998; Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
Table 2. Convergent and discriminant validity of the model constructs
Variable Outer loading

Motivation
IC = 0.866
AVE = 0.686
Mot1 0.669
Mot3 0.906
Mot4 0.890
Self-efficacy
IC = 0.876

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AVE = 0.703
Effi2 0.868
Effi3 0.845
Effi5 0.801
IC = 0.875
AVE = 0.778
Evi1 0.866
Evi2 0.898
Student satisfaction with the university
IC = 0.92
AVE = 0.741
Sat1 0.873
Sat2 0.904
Sat3 0.849
Sat4 0.815
Luck
IC = 0.793
AVE = 0.562
Luc1 0.71
Luc2 0.774
Luc3 0.762
Student success

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IC = 0.884
AVE = 0.656
Suc2 0.757
Suc3 0.822
Suc4 0.854
Suc5 0.803
IC = internal consistency (Composite reliability (rho_a); AVE = average variance extracted

Source: authors extracted from the processed data
Discriminant validity assessment was conducted by comparing the square root of the AVE for
each construct with the correlation between the construct with other constructs in the
model(Chin, 1998; Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Constructs in the estimated model that satisfied the
condition of discriminant validity were represented in Table 3.
Table 3. Correlation among construct scores (Discriminant validity - Fornell-Larcker

criterion)
Self- University Student Student Student

efficacy environment motivation Luck satisfaction success
Self-efficacy 0.838
University environment 0.388 0.882
Student motivation 0.331 0.41 0.829
Luck 0.346 0.34 0.26 0.749
Student satisfaction 0.274 0.487 0.486 0.378 0.861

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Student success 0.459 0.507 0.546 0.405 0.531 0.81

Note: The boldface figures in the diagonal represent the square root of the AVE figures. They should be higher than
the correlation figures.
Table 4. Collinearity statistics - VIF - inner model
Student success
Self-efficacy 1.295
University environment 1.507
Student motivation 1.426
Luck 1.279
Student satisfaction 1.587
4. Structural model results
R2 for dependent construct
The estimated structural model R2 = 0.492 (Figure 2) indicates that 49.2% of the variance in
student success is explained by independent variables. According toFalk and Miller (1992), the
percentage of variance explained for the dependent variable was greater than 10 percent,
indicating the satisfactory value of the PLS model.
Structural coefficients
The results of the estimated model indicated that five constructs hypothesized to affect student
success were significant (Table 5).
Table 5. Structure (inner) model results
Path coefficients Sig. level

T statistics (|O/STDEV|)
Effects on the student success (adjusted R2 = 0.487)
Self-efficacy 0.2 4.571 ****

University environment 0.171 3.158 ***
Student motivation 0.274 5.788 ****
Luck 0.126 2.967 ***

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Student satisfaction 0.213 3.992 ****

****
p< .001, ***p< .010,
Figure 2. Estimated model
To test whether student sex, level of study, education program, campus residence, club
membership, part-time job, student's family residence, and who finances student studying
influence student performnace or not, these factors were included in the model. The results
indicate that only club membership has a significant negative relationship with student
performnace (Table 6).
Table 6. Structure (inner) model results
Path coefficients T statistics (|O/STDEV|) Sig. level

Effi -> Suc 0.19 4.37 ****
Env -> Suc 0.18 3.315 ***
Mot -> Suc 0.279 5.809 ****
Luc -> Suc 0.122 2.862 ***
Sex -> Suc -0.086 1.071 ns
Lev -> Suc 0.012 0.372 ns
Pro -> Suc -0.025 0.653 ns
Cam -> Suc 0.1 0.931 ns
Job -> Suc -0.049 0.708 ns
Clu -> Suc -0.175 2.732 ***
Fam -> Suc -0.089 1.223 ns

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Fin -> Suc -0.003 0.083 ns

****
p< .001, ***p< .010, ns = not significant
Effect size (f square)
f square represents the effect size of independent variables on dependent variables. According to
Cohen (2013), f square < 0.02 indicates an extremely small effect, 0.02 ≤ f square < 0.15: shows
a small effect; 0.15 ≤ f square < 0.35 implies a medium effect and f square ≥ 0.35: represents a
large effect. 0.15 ≤ all path coefficients < 0.35 (Table 5) demonstrate that student self-motivation,
self-efficacy, university environment, student satisfaction, and luck have a medium effect on
student success.
Discussion
This research explored factors influencing student performance. The model was tested on survey
data by applying SmartPLS technology. All five hypotheses were supported by the data. Our
research verified five factors affecting student performance including (i) student self-efficacy,
similar to the findings of Aydin (2017), and (Đặng, 2017); (ii) university environment, similar to
the findings of Pritchard and Wilson (2003), and Kuh et al. (2005), Hunter (2006); (iii) student
satisfaction with university, similar to findings of Crisp et al. (2017), Kuh et al. (2005),
Pascarella and Terenzini (2005); (iv) student self-motivation, similarity to the findings of Cao
and Truong (2022); and (v) luck, similar to the findings of García y García (2021).
In contrast with the findings of (Nguyễn et al., 2017), and Lê (2016), we found that student sex,
level of study, education program, campus residence, part-time job, student's family residence,
and who finances student studying not significantly influence student success, while club
membership has a negative relationship with student achievements.
Practical implications
This research found three internal and two external factors affecting student achievements.
Internal factors include student self-motivation (for a scholarship, self-improvement, good job in
the future), student self-efficacy (good study methods, time management, and attention), and
student engagement in university life(attention, proactively time arrangement for studying and
other activities).External factors, which are out of student control, include student satisfaction
with the university (highly qualified instructors, high-quality education programs, good student
activities, and university environment), and luck (engaging in courses with good instructors,
exam questions often fall into the well-learned sections), less likely to have problems related to
health, personal and family feelings in midterm and final exam time). Therefore, in order to

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improve student's learning outcomes, it is necessary to organize activities that affect student
behavior so that they maintain their self-motivation, such as organizing talk shows whose guest
speakers are successful alumni. Student self-efficacy and engagement in university life are
difficult things to change because it belongs to the gifted, however universities can support them
through soft skills training courses, facilitating good student campus life, both physical facilities
and service quality. Student satisfaction with the university is under the university control,
respondents revealed that somewhere are staff undertaking their job unprofessionally (instructors
abuse student presentations, lack of enthusiasm, dormitory staff is not friendly), and too long
class-section time reduces learning effectiveness, this implies the need of improving and
ensuring the standardized quality of teachers, training programs, student activities, and physical
facilities. Luck is beyond the student's control, however, universities can reduce some of the
risks by ensuring the quality of teachers. In addition, this research found that participating in any
club negatively affects student academic performance. Therefore, measures guiding clubs to
alleviate the effect on students' learning time are needed.
Limitations and directions for further research
This research was unfunded, so the survey was conducted in a convenient way, which may cause
the results to be biased. Further research in the future would use better samples.
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Appendix
Survey questions
Student success
Suc1 = I get high scores.
Suc2 = I understand the content of subjects and can apply it to explain related problems in
practice.
Suc3 = I feel confident and satisfied by acquiring knowledge.
Suc4 = I feel I am more mature socially.
Suc5 = I gained more living skills.
Self-motivation
Mot1 = I study hard to get a scholarship.
Mot2 = I study hard to satisfy my parents' expectations.
Mot4 = I study hard to get a good job in the future.
Self-efficacy

ISSN: 2455-8834
Effi1 = I have good intelligence.
Effi2 = I have a good study method.
Effi3 = I manage my time well.
Effi4 = I work very hard.
Effi5 = I can make attention when learning.
Effi6 = I often exploit resources on campus such as libraries, lecture halls, Wi-Fi to
connect to the internet for learning objectives.
Effi7 = I don't rely on photocopiers' (cheating) test stuff.
Effi8 = I am calm when taking midterm and final exams.
Env1 = In the university environment, it is easier for paying attention when learning.
Env2 = Being independent helps me proactively arrange learning and other activities.
Env3 = Peer pressure has a positive effect on my academic performance.
Env4 = I actively take part in clubs so my socialization improved.
Env5 = I don't have a part-time job so my grades are higher.
Student satisfaction with university
Sat1 = I am satisfied with instructors.
Sat2 = I am satisfied with the quality of the education program.
Sat3 = I am satisfied with the student activities and the university environment.
Sat4 = I am generally satisfied with university life.
Luck
Luc1 = I usually engage in courses with good instructors.
Luc2 = Exam questions often fall into the well-learned sections.
Luc3 = I less likely have problems related to health at the time of midterm and final exams.
ISSN: 2455-8834
Luc4 = I less likely have problems related to personal and family feeling at the time of midterm
and final exams.

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International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT PERFORMANCE

The Doan Truong and Xiem Thuy Cao

National Economics University Hanoi Vietnam

DOI: 10.46609/IJSSER.2023.v08i09.006 URL: https://doi.org/10.46609/IJSSER.2023.v08i09.006

Received: 2 September 2023 / Accepted: 18 September 2023 / Published: 20 September 2023

The purpose of this research is to examine factors influencing undergraduate student

Keywords: Student performance, engagement in university life, student self-efficacy

2. Literature review and the research model

2.1. Literature review

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According to Kuh (2001), student success is created by pre-university experience (background

the third group of variables is student individual characteristics or “psychosocial factors”.

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2.2 Research model

Inherited previous studies, we propose the research model, as shown in Figure 1.

H1: Student self-motivation is positively related to student performance.

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H2: Student self-efficacy is positively related to student performance.

Figure 1. Research model

H3: The university environment is positively or negatively related to student performance.

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H5: The Luck is positively related to student performance.

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Table 1. Characteristics of the sample

Sex Male 336 70%

Female 144 30%

Study level First-year students 271 56%

Sophomores, 189 39.4%

Third year 17 3.5%

Fourth-year students 3 0.6%

Education program Traditional 331 69%

Advanced and oriented 145 30,2%

Student residence Campus 427 89%

Part-time job Yes 257 53,5%

Club membership Yes 285 59,4%

Student’s family residence Urban 220 45,8%

Rural 260 54,2%

Who finance student’s Parents 344 71,7%

Parents and the student 122 25,4%

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Measurement model estimation

Table 2. Convergent and discriminant validity of the model constructs

Variable Outer loading

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Student satisfaction with the university

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IC = internal consistency (Composite reliability (rho_a); AVE = average variance extracted

Table 3. Correlation among construct scores (Discriminant validity - Fornell-Larcker

Self- University Student Student Student

University environment 0.388 0.882

Student motivation 0.331 0.41 0.829

Luck 0.346 0.34 0.26 0.749

Student satisfaction 0.274 0.487 0.486 0.378 0.861

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Student success 0.459 0.507 0.546 0.405 0.531 0.81

Table 4. Collinearity statistics - VIF - inner model

4. Structural model results

R2 for dependent construct