Identification and comparison of factors related to academic failure in medical colleges; A Bi-centre, comparative study.

Objective: To evaluate student's perceptions related to their academic failure, and to compare these perceptions with their nationality.
Methods: The non-interventional, bi-national, comparative study was conducted in medical colleges of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia from 2015 to 2017 and comprised medical students who had scored less than 50% in their professional examinations. Data was collected using a pre-designed 22-item questionnaire that was scored by the students on a 5-point scale. Data was analysed using SPSS 23.
Results: Of the 210 students, 115(55%) were Pakistanis and 95(45%) were Saudis. Common reasons of failure identified were information overload 114(50%), difficult examination 101(48%), poor teaching skills of teachers 82(39%), system of education 75(36%) and unfair examination 78(37%). In terms of nationality, 11 items were found significant (p<0.05).
Conclusions: Regardless of cultural and environmental differences in factors contributing towards failure in students of different countries, the risk factors were found to be common, with most students blaming external factors rather than internal ones.