Determinants of Malaysian and Singaporean Economics Undergraduates’ Academic Performance

Abstract

An international journal that promotes research into effective learning and teaching practice in economics higher educationThe International Review of Economics Education is dedicated to enhancing learning and teaching in the higher education economics community. It provides a forum for high quality research in the areas of curriculum design, pedagogy, assessment, innovation and evaluation. The journal seeks to promote critical dialogue on educational theory and practice in economics and to demonstrate the relevance of research to good professional practice. Editors Moving to a new publisherWe are pleased to announce that from 2013 the International Review of Economics Education will be published by Elsevier. We will also be increasing our issues to three per calendar year. These changes reflect the growing success of the journal. We are very grateful to the referees who have provided immensely valuable comments on the increasing volume of submissions we have been receiving. We are also very pleased with the rising number of high quality submissions we have been receiving.Although we are moving publishers we will be maintaining our close connection with the Economics Network. The birth and growth of the journal would not have been possible without the Network which has been our home for ten years. It is through the generous funding from the Network that it has been possible to maintain the journal as open access with no author fees. Changing higher education policy in England has seen the withdrawal of government funding for the Network. The excellent work of the Network will, however, continue with the support of the Royal Economic Society, the Scottish Economic Society and many economics departments across the UK. Readers of the journal will be able to follow links to IREE through the Network web site and followers of the Network will be able to follow a link from the new Elsevier page for past IREE editions.We owe a special debt to John Sloman who, as Director of the Economics Network, has been enormously supportive of the journal. He has also helped a great deal in the negotiations for our move to a new publisher. We wish him well in his 'retirement'. Improving grades and upgrading the curriculumWhich factors are more important for students' grades? This issue includes papers which consider three plausible causes that have each attracted substantial interest from economics lecturers: prior achievement, students' critical reasoning and study time. These studies prompt reflection on the extent to which the effects of these three factors reflect the methods of teaching and assessment which dominate current practice in the profession.Chang Da Wan and Roland Cheo contribute to the literature on the effect of pre-university academic achievement on university economics achievement, following the paper on this topic in IREE by Fallan and Opstad (2010, Vol. 9). Wan and Cheo find that although overall pre-university achievement is important, there is no separate effect of performance on particular pre-university sub...

Impact of funding on academic performance: An exploration of two South African universities

“…The effect of age is least pronounced for self-funded students and the same for NSFAS-and students funded by other sources. Although some studies (Mlambo, 2011;Sothan, 2019), found the age of a student does not influence academic performance, or that older students perform slightly better (Clifton 1997;Richardson, 1994), in this study the results are in line with more recent contributions that suggest that younger students perform on average better than older students (Alhajraf & Alasfour, 2014;Da Wan & Cheo 2012;Nyikahadzoi et al, 2013).…”

How Gaps between Target and Midcourse Grades Impact Undergraduates’ Studying Intentions and Grade Improvements*

“…In our study, we use students’ high school averages to represent their overall academic ability. These averages are known to be good predictors of first‐year university performance and are often used as measures of students’ overall academic abilities (e.g., Arnold & Straten, 2012; Armstrong & Biktimirov, 2013; Da Wan & Cheo, 2012). We consequently expect students’ academic ability, as represented by their high school averages, to moderate the four relationships described above.…”

Knowledge Growth, Academic Beliefs and Motivation of Students in Business and Economics - A longitudinal German Case Study

“…In a number of studies, determinants have been investigated of how economics students" perform in end-of-term examinations (e.g., Ballard & Johnson, 2004;Buckridge & Guest, 2007;Arnold & Straten, 2012;Da Wan & Cheo, 2012) and in standardized tests of economic knowledge (e.g., Gill & Gratton-Lavoie, 2011;Hwang, 2013;Denny, 2014;Happ, Förster, Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia & Carstensen, 2016a). However, relatively little seems to be known about how students" understanding of economics develops over the course of their studies and what the determinants of this development are.…”