Cognitive and affective variables predictive of the academic performance of university students

Abstract

Affectivity in the educational context has gained importance because it is recognized that students experience a variety of emotions in the academic environment. This article seeks to explain the impact of cognitive and affective variables specifically depression, anxiety and anger on academic performance. The design was a multiple regression analysis that considered the cognitive and affective variables and gender as independent, and the academic GPA as the dependent variable. 719 new students from a Dominican university participated. The results show that, despite the fact that academic performance could be explained by the influence of both variables, the cognitive ones had an effect up to five times greater than the affective ones. The affective variables that had predictive value were anger, specifically internal control and anger reaction, and the cognitive-affective dimension of depression. In women, affective variables were not predictive of academic performance.