Predicting performance of Middle Eastern female students: A challenge for sustainable education

Abstract

AbstractThe present research aimed to uncover individual differences that can be used to predict, at the start of a course, performance difficulties in female students of an understudied population who are at the beginning of their academic journey. Measures of active and passive procrastination and general self‐efficacy were collected at the start of the semester from students enrolled in one of two courses representative of the general education curriculum at a university in the Middle East. Grades on the first homework assignment and test in each course were used as indices of students' early performance. Measures of procrastination and self‐efficacy failed to adequately predict either early performance or attendance rates. Yet, attendance predicted a portion of the variance in assignment performance. This study suggests that class presence, rather than dispositional individual differences, can shape the early academic success of an understudied student population.