The Correlation between Talent and Academic Achievement of Universitas Advent Indonesia Students Batch 2016

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare students’ academic performance between
those justified as talented or not talented in the study program that they chose. The
population of the study was the new students of batch 2016. However, not all
students join the talent test, only 384. The talent test was conducted by a
professional talent test institution, while the academic achievement was based on
the average GPA for the first and second semesters. The talent test result is
classified into three parts, namely recommended, doubted, and not recommended.
Based on the talent test, there were 365 candidate students recommended to take
the study programs that they chose, 17 of those were doubted and only 2 of those
were not recommended. Based on the talent test, the students were asked to
determine their choice before taking any courses. Most of the students chose the
program for the first time, some students changed their mind and moved to another
study program within UNAI, and only few students changed their mind and did not
enroll in UNAI at all. The study showed that the correlation coefficient between
the talent test result and the academic result was low, with a correlation coefficient
(r) of 0.125. Based on the ANOVA test, it was found that there is a difference in
the academic achievement between students who were recommended, doubted or
not recommended to take the courses that they chose. If the talent does not
significantly correlate with the achievement, then it is interesting to study in future
what other significant factors, besides the talent, that influence the academic
achievement.