The Influence of Health Status Towards Academic Performance Among Undergraduate Students at the Universiti Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

Sustaining and improving the academic performance of university students is vital to the students as well as the university since the main aim of higher education in a broader sense is to enable society to make progress through sustaining a learning society. Besides, the health status of students could affect their academic performance. Hence, the objectives of this study are twofold; first, to identify the level of academic performance of the students; and second, to determine the relationship between health status and academic performance of the university’s students. This quantitative cross-sectional study using a survey questionnaire method was performed on the 93 undergraduate students from the Bachelor of Human Resource Management (BHRM) programme at the Faculty of Business and Accountancy, Universiti Selangor (UNISEL), Malaysia. The analysis of the data indicates that this university’s students have above average academic performance as the majority of the respondents scored a CGPA of between 3.00 and 3.49 pointer. Further, the results show a significant relationship exists between blood pressure, glucose level, and academic performance of the students. Maintaining a good lifestyle habit, a balanced diet, enough sleep, and regular physical activity are among the activities done by the students to achieve a good health status. This shows that, with an improved level of health-conscious, health issues are reduced, and that ultimately improves academic performance. Maintaining a good health status of students in the higher education setting is necessary to promote the practice of self-adjusting their self-awareness of their health condition. The university should provide and promote physical activity in higher education settings as physical activity has been recommended as a tool for developing students’ cognitive activity which has positive effects on the brain.