Demographic data of the participants are described in Table 1:
Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of the participants
Variable
|
N= 777
|
Percentage
|
CI* 95%
|
Age:
|
|
|
|
16 to 18 years
|
454
|
58.4
|
54.93 – 61.85
|
19 to 20 years
|
280
|
36.0
|
32.74 – 39.47
|
21 to 22 years
|
21
|
2.7
|
1.77 – 4.10
|
23 to 24 years
|
10
|
1.3
|
0.70 – 2.35
|
25 to 26 years
|
6
|
.8
|
0.35 – 1.67
|
27 to 28 years
|
4
|
.5
|
0.20 – 1.32
|
28 years or more
|
2
|
.3
|
0.07 – 0.93
|
Gender:
|
|
|
|
Female
|
475
|
61.13
|
57.66 – 42.34
|
Me
|
302
|
38.87
|
35.50 – 42.34
|
Religion:
|
|
|
|
Catholic
|
555
|
71.52
|
68.25 – 74.58
|
Christian
|
121
|
15.59
|
13.21 – 18.31
|
Jewish
|
1
|
0.13
|
0.02 – 0.73
|
Mormon
|
11
|
1.42
|
0.79 – 2.52
|
Jehovah’s Witnesses
|
3
|
0.39
|
0.13 – 1.13
|
None
|
79
|
10.18
|
8.25 – 12.51
|
Other
|
6
|
0.77
|
0.35 – 1.68
|
Marital Status
|
|
|
|
Married
|
3
|
0.39
|
0.13 – 1.13
|
Divorced
|
3
|
0.39
|
0.13 -1.13
|
Single
|
766
|
98.58
|
97.48 – 99.21
|
Free union
|
5
|
0.64
|
0.28 – 1.50
|
Origin:
|
|
|
|
Local
|
496
|
63.84
|
60.40 – 67.14
|
Foreigner
|
281
|
36.16
|
32.86 – 39.60
|
*CI: Confidence Interval
77.09% of the students came from public High Schools and 22.91% from private ones. About the high school modalities, 73.75% of the students came from a general high school, 24.20% came from a technological high school, 1.16% of the students from open high schools, and 0.90% of the students came from professional technical high schools. 57.92% of the students took a two-year high school program, while 41.44 took a three-year program and only 0.64% of the students took a one-year high school program. 90.35% of the participants scored a high level of strength of motivation and only 9.65% scored a low strength of motivation level. 52% of the participants had an A/B socioeconomic level, the highest, and none of the participants had an E level, the lowest. 82.88 % of the participants scored an adequate adaptation to university while 17.12% were having an inadequate adaptation. 58.43% of the students said that they had an adequate perception of its study methods while 41.57% said that they have an inadequate perception. These demonstrate that many students recognize that the study methods are not effective. 91.51% of the students satisfied the admission profile of the Faculty of Medicine while 8.49% didn´t.
The inferential analysis of the variables based on the mean of the academic performance of each group of students is summarized in Table 2.
Table 2: Inferential analysis of the variables based on academic performance
Variable
|
Mean (SEM)
|
CI
|
p
|
Gender
|
|
|
|
Male (n=302)
|
53.73 (.85)
|
52.06-55.39
|
.410
|
Female (n=475)
|
52.88 (.61)
|
51.68-54.07
|
|
Origin
|
|
|
|
Local (n=496)
|
51.11 (.60)
|
49.93-52.28
|
.000
|
Foreign (n=281)
|
56.92 (.85)
|
55.25-58.58
|
|
Institution Type
|
|
|
|
Public (n=599)
|
52.45 (.56)
|
51.35-53.54
|
.007
|
Private (n=178)
|
55.79 (1.08)
|
53.67-57.90
|
|
Marital Status (Simplified)
|
|
|
|
Single (n=766)
|
53.18 (.50)
|
52.20-54.16
|
.557
|
Non single (n=11)
|
55.68 (4.40)
|
47.05-64.30
|
|
Strength of Motivation
|
|
|
|
High strength of motivation (n=702)
|
53.51 (1.91)
|
49.76-57.25
|
.007
|
Low strength of motivation (n=75)
|
50.47 (.51)
|
49.47-51.46
|
|
Years of High School
|
|
|
|
2 years or less (n=455)
|
50.60 (.63)
|
49.36-51.83
|
.000
|
3 years (n=322)
|
56.91 (.76)
|
55.42-58.39
|
|
Adaptation to University
|
|
|
|
Inadequate adaptation (n=133)
|
51.93 (1.29)
|
49.40-54.45
|
.274
|
Adequate adaptation (n=644)
|
53.48 (.54)
|
52.42-54.53
|
|
Perception of the Study Method
|
|
|
|
Adequate perception (n=323)
|
48.89 (.71)
|
47.49-50.28
|
.000
|
Inadequate perception (454)
|
56.29 (.65)
|
55.01-57.56
|
|
Admission Profile
|
|
|
|
Doesn´t satisfy admission profile (n=66)
|
49.28 (1.84)
|
45.67-52.88
|
.028
|
Satisfies admission profile (n=711)
|
53.58 (.51)
|
52.58-54.57
|
|
SEM: Standard Error of Mean.
There were significant differences in many of the evaluated indicators. Foreign students, either national or international had a higher academic performance than local students. This could be due to different factors. In our experience foreign students tend to dedicate more time to study than local students. Moreover, foreign students usually take a three-year high school program and local students, particularly in our city usually take two-year programs. Finally, the student´s address could have an important impact, foreign students usually live near their schools, taking short periods for transportation that could be used to study.
Students that came from private high schools showed a higher academic performance than those that came from public high schools, something very relevant for a country like Mexico in which most of its educational institutions are public. The higher scores could be since this type of institution has newer and most equipped campuses and a lower number of students for each professor. Moreover, to be part of a high economic level allows the student to have more access to different resources for its education.
Motivation strength is a factor that affects academic performance, showing lower scores those who have a low strength of motivation and a higher those with higher strength of motivation. As was mentioned before, Medical students are frequently exposed to a high level of stress, with a large academic load, busy schedules, and other stressful factors.
This added to the fact that many students migrate from their city of origin to study, which leads to moving away from their family and friends, tend to decrease the student´s strength of motivation. There are some other factors related to the medical profession that contribute to the decrease of motivation, such as the student overpopulation on universities, the competition with the student peers and professionals, the lack of opportunities in a saturated health system, among others. It is increasingly common for universities to implement strategies to increase motivation and mental health of the students. As we described before, the duration of the high school programs of the student can impact its academic performance. This could be due to individual factors of the student such as incomplete emotional and academic maturity or with institutional factors, like a shorter program that doesn´t address to develop basic skills for adequate performance at university or at least not as a three-year program offers.
The perception of the study method represents a self-view of the student. As its measures could not be one hundred percent precise it gives us a very good overview of how students feel about the challenges of the career. Our results showed that students with a low perception of its study method had a lower academic performance than that whit a good perception of its study method. This is important since it tells us that the student is conscious that their study method is not appropriate and that it doesn´t get the results that they expect from it. So, if the student knows that they need to change this, the effort should be put in giving them the tools to address a better method.
Our results show that students that didn´t satisfy the Faculty´s admission profile had a significantly lower academic performance than those that did satisfy it. We can tell from it that many students apply to the Medical program for reasons different than the self-interest of study it, like having a family member that dedicates to some health-related science, the false idea that those with high grades should study medicine, and the stigma that Medicine is the career with the highest salaries are factors for not satisfying the admission profile.
About the modality of High School, we describe that those students that came from technological high schools had a higher academic performance than those that came from general high school. This could be related to the fact that students from technological high school study a technical career that could be related to the health-related area which allows the students to be more prepared in some areas before getting into medical school. These results are summarized in Table 3.
Table 3: Evaluation of academic performance based on the High School modality
|
Mean (SEM)
|
CI
|
p
|
General High-School (n=573)
|
52.28 (.57)
|
51.14-53.42
|
.000
|
Technological High School (n=188)
|
56.62 (1.00)
|
54.63-58.61
|
|
Professional Technician (n=7)
|
52.85 (4.54)
|
41.74-63.97
|
|
Open High School (n=9)
|
41.88 (5.22)
|
29.83-53.94
|
|
Our results about how socioeconomic level affects the academic performance should be interpreted in the context of the environment in which our research was conducted. As we show that socioeconomic level A/B, the higher one, showed a higher academic performance than any other group, we should keep in mind that more than half of the participants belonged to this group and just a small proportion represents the rest of the groups. Furthermore, there wasn´t a linear correlation between socioeconomic level and academic performance, since they were lower socioeconomic levels with a higher academic performance than the immediately superior level.
The economic factor is very important. The simple fact of studying a university career represents a challenge for a large percentage of the population that doesn´t have the economic resources. Medical career is one of the most expensive ones, so further academic research should intentionally look for a clearer relation between socioeconomic level and academic performance, especially in a country like ours where we have schools which fees range from being free in a few institutions to more than $10 000 U.S.D. in many others. These results are summarized in Table 4.
Table 4: Evaluation of academic performance based on the socioeconomic level
|
Mean (SEM)
|
CI
|
p
|
D (n=5)
|
53.20 (7.43)
|
32.54-73.85
|
.029
|
D+ (n=13)
|
47.26 (2.86)
|
41.02-53.51
|
|
C- (n=42)
|
52.85 (2.16)
|
48.48-57.23
|
|
C (n=112)
|
49.67 (1.22)
|
47.24-52.09
|
|
C+ (n=198)
|
53.28 (1.05)
|
51.19-55.37
|
|
A/B (n=407)
|
54.38 (.68)
|
53.04-55.72
|
|
We also did a Pearson correlation test to evaluate the relation between high school average grade and the student´s academic performance, obtaining a low positive correlation (0.209) meaning that not necessarily those with higher grades at high school have higher academic performances.