Factors influencing academic achievement of business administration department students in Thai private higher education institutions

The purpose of this study was to determine how low-performing students and high-performing students differ in terms of the following: (a) students' background information, (b) the college or university environment, (c) students' interactions with faculty and peers, and (d) the quality of student effort. A questionnaire was utilized for data collection in this study. The instrument that was used in this study was adapted from the fourth edition of the College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ). Random selection was used to select six private higher education institutions to obtain sophomore students of business administration department in each institution to be participants. Questionnaires were returned from 635 of the total number of 750 individuals. Therefore, the total return rate for this study was 84.7%.;The findings in this study revealed significant differences between the mean scores of high-performing students and low-performing students on high school GPA, family income, and parents' educational level. High-performing students have higher high school GPAs and come from families with higher socioeconomic status. High-performing students have parents' with higher levels of education than the low-performing students.;The testing of research questions on student's perceptions of college environment and students' interaction with faculty members and peers resulted in significant differences between the mean scores of high-performing students and low-performing students on college size, involvement in sports activities and facilities, participating in student clubs and organizations, and experiences in discussion with faculty members. High-performing students have high level of engagement in dealing with student clubs and organizations and experiences with faculty members, while low-performing students were found more frequently in the larger colleges and were more involved in sports activities and facilities than the high-performing students. The testing of the final research question on student's quality of effort resulted in a significant difference between the mean scores of high-performing and low-performing students. High-performing students used computer and information technology more frequently, had higher levels of involvement in course learning, and spent more time studying per day.;Discriminant analysis identified eight factors to be collectively the best predictors in a discriminant function for classifying high-performing students and low-performing students. The eight Variables were high school major, active involvement in course learning, high school GPA, use of computer and information technology, participation in sport activities, participation in student clubs and organizations, majoring in accounting, and college size. The strongest predictor for differentiating between high-performing students and low-performing students was high school major, and the weakest predictor was the college size.