What factors contribute to higher grades in a first-year undergraduate management unit: an exploratory study at an Australian university

Figures & data

Table 1. Explanatory and contingent variable definitions and their connections to the literature.

Variable	Description	Literature Reference
Result	Ordinal form in five different grade categories – High distinction (HD) indicates a mark range of 85–100, Distinction (D) indicates a mark range of 75–84, Credit (CR) indicates a mark range of 65–74, Pass (PS) indicates a mark range of 50–64, and Fail (FA) indicates a mark range of 0–49	Gutiérrez & Tomás, 2019
Tutor.PhD	Takes ‘PhD’ if a tutor has a PhD, otherwise takes ‘Non–PhD’	Heng, 2014
Tutor.Exp	A continuous variable that captures tutors’ experience teaching in higher education in years	Kwizera et al., 2001; Lang et al., 2007
Tutor.Gender	A dichotomous variable (Tutor.Gender) that takes ‘male’ for male tutors, otherwise takes ‘female’	Lang et al., 2007; Marx et al., 2016
Student.Age	A continuous variable that captures a student’s age (years)	Lioa et al., 2012; Bornschlegl et al., 2020
Student.Gender	A dichotomous variable (Student.Gender) that takes ‘male’ in the case of a male student, otherwise takes ‘female’	Wintre et al., 2011
Entry.Score	A continuous variable between 0 and 100 that captures ATAR for domestic students or an equivalent score for international students	Baik et al., 2015
Degree.No	Takes ‘Dual–Degree’ for dual degree or ‘BCom’ if the student is enrolled only in one degree	Johnson & Walberg, 1989; McKenzie & Schweitzer, 2001
Tutorial.Missed	A numeric variable that captures the number of tutorials missed by a student in the unit	Kuh et al., 2008
Page.Views	The number of times a student accessed content pages in the learning management system during the regular semester timeframe	Vallis et al., 2022
Ed.Participations	The number of postings in an online discussion forum (Ed) through a continuous variable	Vallis et al., 2022
Home.Country	An ordinal variable (Home.Country) that takes ‘Domestic’ for Australian students and otherwise takes ‘International’	Sawir et al., 2008

Table 2. Direct effect of explanatory variables and contingent variable.

	Model 1						Model 2
	Beta	S.E.^a	p-value	2.5% CI^b	97.5% CI	OR^c	Beta	S.E.	p-value	2.5% CI	97.5% CI	OR
Tutor.PhD(PhD)	0.466	0.155	0.003	0.163	0.770	1.594	0.555	0.157	<0.001	0.249	0.863	1.742
Tutor.Exp	0.001	0.007	0.874	−0.013	0.015	1.001	−0.001	0.007	0.866	−0.015	0.013	0.999
Tutor.Gender(male)	−0.257	0.135	0.056	−0.521	0.007	0.773	−0.233	0.136	0.086	−0.499	0.033	0.792
Student.Age	−0.260	0.046	<0.001	−0.350	−0.170	0.771	−0.167	0.046	<0.001	−0.280	−0.050	0.846
Student.Gender(male)	0.053	0.128	0.677	−0.198	0.305	1.055	−0.109	0.131	0.407	−0.367	0.148	0.897
Entry.Score	0.073	0.010	<0.001	0.053	0.093	1.076	0.118	0.010	<0.001	0.080	0.158	1.125
Degree.No(Dual-Degree)	1.178	0.149	<0.001	0.886	1.471	3.249	0.620	0.163	<0.001	0.301	0.941	1.859
Tutorial.Missed	−0.599	0.059	<0.001	−0.715	−0.483	0.549	−0.593	0.061	<0.001	−0.714	−0.477	0.552
Page.Views	0.000	0.000	0.269	0.000	0.000	1.000	0.000	0.000	0.023	0.000	0.001	1.000
Ed.Participations	−0.016	0.011	0.168	−0.038	0.007	0.985	−0.021	0.011	0.063	−0.043	0.001	0.979
Home.Country(International)							−1.498	0.164	<0.001	−1.833	−1.168	0.224
1Fail|2Pass	−1.835	0.002	<0.001				3.319	0.003	<0.001
2Pass|3Credit	1.684	0.212	<0.001				7.006	0.220	<0.001
3Credit|4Distinction	4.410	0.242	<0.001				9.915	0.256	<0.001
AIC	1939.145						1859.359

^a Standard error.

^b Confidence interval.

^c Odds ratio.

Table 3. Contingent effect.

	Model 3
	Beta	S.E.^a	p-value	2.5% CI^b	97.5% CI	OR^c
Tutor.PhD(PhD)	0.849	0.138	<0.001	0.579	1.120	2.338
Tutor.Exp	−0.008	0.008	0.360	−0.024	0.009	0.992
Tutor.Gender(male)	−0.484	0.170	0.004	−0.816	−0.151	0.617
Student.Age	−0.073	0.060	0.219	−0.190	0.043	0.929
Student.Gender(male)	0.002	0.163	0.992	−0.318	0.321	1.002
Tutorial.Missed	0.137	0.013	<0.001	0.112	0.161	1.146
Entry.Score	0.354	0.139	0.011	0.081	0.627	1.425
Degree.No(Dual-Degree)	−0.742	0.086	<0.001	−0.911	−0.573	0.476
Page.Views	0.000	0.000	0.060	0.000	0.001	1.000
Ed.Participations	−0.025	0.015	0.096	−0.053	0.004	0.976
Home.Country(International)	5.945	0.001	<0.001	5.943	5.948	382.014
Tutor.PhD(PhD)* Home.Country(International)	−0.548	0.104	<0.001	−0.752	−0.344	0.578
Tutor.Exp* Home.Country(International)	0.020	0.014	0.153	−0.008	0.048	1.021
Tutor.Gender(male)* Home.Country(International)	0.556	0.263	0.035	0.040	1.072	1.744
Student.Age* Home.Country(International)	−0.198	0.092	0.031	−0.379	−0.018	0.820
Student.Gender(male)* Home.Country(International)	−0.367	0.267	0.170	−0.891	0.157	0.693
Tutorial.Missed* Home.Country(International)	−0.046	0.019	0.014	−0.083	−0.009	0.955
Entry.Score* Home.Country(International)	0.605	0.084	<0.001	0.439	0.770	1.831
Degree.No(Dual-Degree)* Home.Country(International)	0.240	0.113	0.034	0.018	0.462	1.271
Page.Views* Home.Country(International)	0.000	0.000	0.999	−0.001	0.001	1.000
Ed.Participations* Home.Country(International)	0.000	0.023	0.983	−0.045	0.046	1.000
AIC	1853.978

^a Standard error.

^b Confidence interval.

^c Odds ratio.

Figure 1. Interaction between Tutor.PhD and Home.Country – high-performing students benefitted from a tutor with a PhD.

Figure 2. Interaction between Tutor.Gender and Home.Country – Tutor’s gender influences student’s performance

Figure 3. Interaction between Student.Age and Home.Country – Student’s age influences domestic and international student’s success differently

Figure 4. Interaction between Entry.Score and Home.Country – Higher entry scores explain student’s performance.

Figure 5. Interaction between Degree.No and Home.Country – Dual degree helps students to secure better performance.

Figure 6. Interaction between Tutorial.Missed and Home.Country – Tutorial missed has a complex effect on student’s performance.

Figure 7. Connection between empirical constructs, theories, emerging theoretical constructs, and proposed theoretical model.

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