Biosocial Conditions and Academic Performance: A Case Study of Post Graduate Students of Utkal University

The term bio-social conditions refers to some selected indicators related to health status, social background and psychological traits. Academic achievement or performance is the extent to which a student achieved his/her short-term or long-term goals, like cumulative GPA, completion of educational degrees such as high school, bachelor's degree et cetera. The present study linkages between the academic performances of P.G students with their biosocial conditions. The survey area is confined to the Department of Analytical & Applied Economics, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. This study is based on primary data. The population size is 123. The respondents are the P.G. students of the department. Descriptive Statistics, Correlation Analysis and Independent Sample T-tests have been used for analysing data. It was found that the relationship between a biological variable (BMI) and behavioural variable with academic performance is negative. The independent sample T-test for mean differences in academic performance across normal and non-normal BMI groups shows a significant difference only in the case of ‘hours of self-study’. There is also an insignificant mean difference in academic performance (overall attendance, % hours of class and self-study) across income group below the mean income of 35757 and income group above the mean income of 35757. This may be due to sampling fluctuation. There is no significant relationship between mark scored in the last exam as the dependent variable and two indicators of consumption habits that is junk food as % of the preferred food items, outside food taken as % of total food in a usual week as the independent variables whereas there exists a significant relationship between cumulative attendance as the dependent variable and two same indicators of consumption habits as the independent variables.