EDUCATION

Case Study Analysis

Case Study Analysis

Introduction

Mary is currently in second year and second semester. She is interested in taking practice experience which is based on 12 week classes from the institute located an hour of drive away. She is a single parent of a seven year child and had a very strong support of her parents who live nearby. Mary is new to the practice experience and therefore, needed a mentor to teach her and support her. On her first day, she was on her own because her mentor was absent due to illness. She couldn't perform well and so she got emotional. As a result, she was advised to rejoin after a week until her mentor comes back. But by then, she requested to change her practice experience and mentioned the transport issue as her major problem.

Factors affecting student's performance

There can be different factors that highly affect students' performance. Starting from this case scenario, like Mary, students can be affected by the lack of teaching material and lack of support from staff members especially when a particular course is new and complicated for the students. Generally, students' performance is also dependent on the education curriculum and communication gap between student and staff. The environment and support from administration regarding major issues also affect students on a large scale. Sometimes, student's health cannot meet the requirements of education.

Students come to the educational institution to learn some skills and abilities that they are supposed to apply in their practical life. There are different stages on which students need support regarding their social and academic issues which are needed to resolve on time. Sometimes students get de-motivated if they are not being evaluated or not encouraged to participate in the class. Furthermore, students face family issues and in many cases, they may have transport or travelling issues as well.

There have been many studies that sought to examine this issue and their findings point out to hard work, previous schooling, parents' education, family income and self motivation as factors that have a significant effect on the students GPA. Most of those studies have focused on students' performance in the U.S. and Europe. Some of them showed that cultural differences also play important role in students' academic performance which forms the overall environment of the institution.

Most important, the major factor in my view can be the evaluation and feedback of students from teachers. This ...