Academic Facility Availability and Influence on Students' Academic Performance and Enrollment: Moderating and Mediating Effects of Facility Maintenance

Abstract

Many studies have assessed the influence of a diversity of factors on the academic performance of students but not much can be found on the effects of academic facility availability and functionality on performance and enrollment. In this study, the influence of academic facility availability (AFA) on academic performance (AP) and enrollment of students (E) and the potential mediation and moderating effects of facility maintenance (FM) are studied. A cross-sectional survey, quantitative design was followed and data was assessed using IBM-SPSS (version 25). Multivariate regression analysis was performed after data fitness and collinearity checks were performed. Models were significant for AP and E with R² values being 0.8990 and 0.7210 respectively at P < 0.05. It was observed that a unit increase in the availability of functional academic facilities in educational institutions in Ghana has the potential to enhance the academic performance of students by about 69.00%, holding all other factors constant. Also, to a significant but lesser degree, the maintenance of existing facilities (FM), when improved by a unit has the potential to also enhance AP by about 41.00%. Further assessment indicated that a unit improvement in AFA in educational institutions had the potential to increase enrollment by about 70.00%, whereas the maintenance of such facilities would only enhance E by 21.00%, ceteris paribus. The PROCESS macro extension was used to test mediation and moderation functions of FM in this study. FM mediated significantly the relationship between AFA and AP (r² = 0.7190) but could not mediate that between AFA and E (r² = 0.0893). A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the moderating effects of FM on the relationship between AFA and AP or E. FM was found to significantly moderated the relationships between AFA and AP/E (P < 0.05).

Keywords: Academic facilities; maintenance; mediation; moderation; academic performance; student enrollment.

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-25-08

Publication date:September 30^th 2019