A Comparative Study of Academic Challenges Faced by Rural and Urban Students in their Undergraduate Level

Abstract

This study explores the academic roadblocks encountered by rural and urban students in the undergrad level at a private university. The study focuses on the undergrad level students because this level is considered as the key and formative years of one's education. Challenges faced by the students from urban and rural areas at their undergrad level are not the same because rural students face problems such as language barriers, lack of technological skills, transitional issues, lack of communication, adaptation to new environments, low motivation and so on. On the contrary, urban students are better off when it comes to academic challenges at undergrad level; however, they still face challenges including language barriers, transitional issues, study pressure, and not understanding study materials. The purpose of this study is to find out the kind of academic challenges rural and urban students face while studying in an urban private university. I conducted qualitative research to see to what extent rural and urban students face academic challenges and how similarly or differently they cope with those. The systematic analysis and coding of the collected data reveals mainly four emerging themes: language barriers, technological literacy, transitional issues and low motivation that mainly affect their academic performance and achievement in the undergraduate level.