Abstract:

This paper proposes a quantitative analysis of the students’ academic performances based on previous determinants, independent of the current academic behavioural patterns of the students, such as: the socio-economic environment they lived in, the parental model they have benefited from, the profile of the high-school they have graduated from, political factors etc. Regardless of the educational level of the school an individual attends, their performance at a certain moment in time may be influenced by factors that a person cannot control. For example, the training and education of the parents, their income, the parental environment he/she has grown up in are factors that a student cannot influence, but they have made ​​their mark on their level of training and their academic performance.

Studying the specialized literature, there were identified the main concerns and studies on the factors influencing students' academic performance.
Graetz (1995) believes that the success in students’ academic performance is directly influenced by the social situation of their parents or tutors. On the same line there are situated Considine and Zappala (2002), who believe that parents’ income have a direct influence of students’ results. Self-motivation, students' age and learning (Aripin, Mahmood, Rohaizad, Yeop, & Anuar, 2008) are other important factors that affect the academic performance of students.

From the perspective of economic education, other authors believe that it is influenced by economic, social, technological and cultural factors specific to each country (Lin Z.J. et al., 2005). Most studies confirm the existence of an influence relationship between prior knowledge and influence academic performance (Hailikari et al., 2008, Marzano, 2004, Thompson & Zamboanga, 2004, Dochy, De Rijdt, & Dyck, 2002, Lizzio, Wilson & Simons 2002).

The process of admission to a degree program or master 's degree influence the students’ academic performance as a possible candidate selection system based on previously acquired knowledge and skills influence the level of the students admitted depending of the degree of difficulty of this process.

One of the motivations of this research is the pros and cons of the statements regarding the influence of prior learning on the students’ academic performance.

This paper includes an elaborated case study about students' academic performance in the Bucharest University of Economics Studies. The Bucharest University of Economic Studies is the biggest economic university from Romania, that means this study is relevant for measurement student’s academic performance in economic domain. The case study has used the data obtained from the university management information systems which are processed with SPSS Statistics, version 22. The data used aimed at the students of 2012, 2013, 2014 graduation years and Master students of 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 graduation years. The results provide important information about the academic performance of students in economics in Romania, results which are largely converged with the results of the studies in the studied specialized literature, but there also are results which are different therefrom.

Keywords:

Student's performance, evaluation, measurement, case study, quantitative analysis.