Student Counselling and Academic Performance of the University Students in Bangladesh

This study examines whether student counselling has any impact on better academic performance of the university students in Bangladesh. Although student counselling has been an integral part of most academic institutions globally, there has been a dearth of understanding its impact on academic performance of the students. Drawing upon evidences from 378 undergraduate students of a university in Bangladesh, this study reveals a positive correlation between student counselling and achieving better academic performance. Respondents of this study sought counselling support from a course teacher and their counselling information was recorded in a diary. Out of 378 student participants, academic performances of 100 students were selected randomly to compare two sets of data regarding the average score (GPA) of the students in two semesters before, during and after the counselling. A machine learning analytical approach was used to find out if there was any improvement in academic performance of the students. It was found that counselling significantly helped students in attaining better academic performance. Findings of this study also revealed that, besides various academic issues, students also sought counselling support on many other non-academic matters that they find affected their academic performance.