The Relationship between Perception of Educational-Research Environment and Research Self-efficacy and Academic Achievement of Students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences

Academic achievement of students is one of the most important indicators for assessment of higher education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between perception of educational-research environment and research self-efficacy and academic achievement of students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. This descriptive-correlational study was performed on all graduate students of faculties of Nursing and Midwifery, Pharmacy, Dentistry, and Medicine in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in 2012-2013 academic years. The sample included 185 students selected randomly through stratified proportional sampling (by their faculty). Data collection tools were a researcher-made university educational-research environment questionnaire and Salehi’s research self-efficacy questionnaire. GPA was used to measure students’ academic achievement. The validity of the researcher-made questionnaire was verified by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of construct validity and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used in order to measure the reliability. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Pearson correlation, regression, and independent t-test. Results showed that there was a significant positive relationship between educational-research environment and academic achievement (r=0.19,p=0.04). There was a significant positive relationship between subcomponents of teaching quality and academic achievement of students (r=0.20, p=0.037). Also, among the total research self-efficacy scale and its seven subcomponents, only two sub-components of self-efficacy in conceptualization(r=0.33, p=0.0001) and self-efficacy in search and translation skills (r=o.19, p= 0.04) were significantly related to academic achievement. Moreover, results of the t-test showed that there was a significant difference between male and female students in terms of academic achievement (p= 0.007). In order to enhance students’ academic achievement, it is necessary to improve the educational-research environment and students’ confidence in relation to research skills in searching and translating English texts.