A study on the effect of socio-economic variables on the academic success of higher education students

In this study, an answer was searched for this critical question "What kind of relationships are there between the academic success of the student and some his/her economic, social, cultural and individual features?". Also the relation between their internet usage, social interaction and their academic success was searched. The study has quality of descriptive analytic as it aims to identify the relation and interaction between the socioeconomic features, internet usage and social interaction level of the senior students and their academic success level. The population of the study included the undergraduate senior students being trained in the University of Inonu, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Science during the academic year of 2012/2013. Data collection was used through a survey and a social interaction scale which were applied total 251 participants, participated in the survey developed to gather data. 227 participants' data was analyzed after dropping some of irrelevant and wrong given data. Nonparametric correlation analysis, Chi-Square tests, MannWhitney U tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests analysis in order to identify the relation between study data variables. The significance level of analysis results are assessed according to the p< .05 level. The results of this study indicate that the academic success of the student, to some extent, can be interpreted depending on the socio-economic variables in which the student grows up. According to the results gathered in the survey, it can be claimed that; 1.Female students' academic success level is higher than the others', 2.Generally the variables of the gender of the student, the type of senior high school they graduated, the fee the student paid for educational background of the student before entering the university, the settlement, the number of siblings, the income affect the academic success of the student.vi 3. There is not a relationship between the students' general academic transcripts and their duration of daily use of the internet, level of social interaction. Key words: Socio-Economic Status, Student Performance, Internet Usage, Social Interaction.