Protection factors self-efficacy and causal attributions related to academic performance, personal characteristics and life at university at engineering education

Abstract

This in-progress research paper is studying the relations between academic performance, protection factors, life at university, and personal characteristics, in order to identify protective factors for students' academic success. Engineering undergraduate courses in Brazil are known for their extensive theoretical curricula, overload in classes and content to study, constant failures, and high retention. On the other hand, several students can somehow overcome these difficulties, move on, and conclude studies. Current research studied the relations among academic performance, self-efficacy, causal attributions, personal characteristics, and life at university in a sample of 30 students from an electrical engineering public university in Sao Paulo state, Brazil, who voluntarily accepted to attend the survey. It was found a statistical relationship between academic performance and protection factors self-efficacy and causal attributions, specifically a positive one with dimensions initiation, persistence, and success, and a negative one with failure. Both positive and negative are due to internal causes. However, personal characteristics variables - such as color or race brown and having primary education in a public school associated with socioeconomic disadvantages in Brazil - showed a negative relationship with academic performance. Due to several sampling limitations, it is suggested further studies with larger samples to investigate the association of academic performance with some of the variables, especially the ones related to social minorities and how to balance them with other protective factors