Determinants of academic achievement: systematic review of 25 years of meta-analyses

Abstract

This work is a continuation of the review carried out by Sippe and Curlette (1997), which synthesized the results of 103 meta-analyses published between 1984 and 1993 aimed at studying the variables that influenced academic performance. Knowing the aspects that enhance or hinder students' academic performance is key to improving it. Therefore, in this paper we perform a review of 80 meta-analyses published between 1994 and 2019 with 127 effect sizes that have analyzed the relationship between personal, family, school and teacher variables and students' academic performance. The results provide an overview of the characteristics of the meta-analyses identified in relation to their search process, selection and coding of the primary studies, their methodology, and the characteristics of the selected studies is obtained. Also, an estimate of the effect size of each of the determinants of academic performance is calculated from the 127 effect sizes distributed by these meta-analyses. The above shows that the personal variables that have the greatest influence on academic performance are prematurity, the student's previous performance, intelligence, and health. Among the family factors, the absence of the father, mistreatment received by the family environment and socioeconomic status stand out. The school aspects that have shown the greatest weight on student results have been classroom climate, measures to reduce misbehavior and school organization. Finally, among the variables associated with the teacher, the teachers´ own characteristics, their relationship with the students and the quality of teaching have demonstrated to be the most important. For all these reasons, the review conducted in this paper in relation to the determinants of academic performance will facilitate the adoption of better decisions when addressing its improvement.

            Key words: Academic achievement, Academic failure, Systematic review, Meta-analysis, Meta-synthesis