Why undergraduates could hit the skids in higher education: a four-stage socialisation-based understanding of academic failure

The number of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) attending institutions of higher education continues to increase while typical accommodations provided by campus disability service offices often remain unchanged. Based on the unique characteristics associated with ASD, the need for supports and “soft accommodations” continues to rise at an alarming rate. The purpose of this paper is to describe how one program used peer mentoring as an intervention to increase student success for university students with ASD. With these identified areas of need, Transition to Healthiness, Resourcefulness, Independence, Vocation, and Education (THRIVE) was created in early 2012 to provide supplemental supports, including mentoring, for degree-seeking students with ASD attending a 4-year university. Specific strategies such as peer mentoring, mentor selection, and mentor training are discussed. Data results for 18 First Time In College (FTIC) new participants in the THRIVE program during the 2018–2019 year indicated increased student GPAs from 1st semester to 1st year with an average GPA of 3.36 after one year (Fall + Spring + Summer semesters). Additional results include reported positive social interactions and high levels of student engagement with peer mentors. One major finding of the data analysis includes identification of peer mentoring as an effective resource for university students with ASD. Development of similar mentor programs in higher education are discussed.

This study explores the relationships between cultural factors (ethnicity, religiosity, and gender) and attribution or the way students perceive the causes of their academic success and failure, along with motivational goals, learned helplessness, self-efficacy, intelligence beliefs, and academic performance in the Indonesian university context. Racial/ethnic identity measurement had three dimensions: private regard, ethnic importance, and social embeddedness; Religiosity had two dimensions: religious behaviour and intrinsic religiosity. Attribution was further differentiated into locus of control, stability, personal control and external control dimensions. A total of 1,006 university students from three public universities and two private universities participated. Both public and private universities were necessarily included as in the Indonesian context the race issue permeates educational settings with mostly Native Indonesian students at public universities and Chinese Indonesian students at private universities. Data were obtained from two time-points: first was for the student surveys which were collected after students’ mid-term tests, along with self-reported mid-term test scores. The second time-point was for students’ final test and grade point average scores at the end of the academic term, collected from each university’s administration. Students’ attributions were hypothesized to predict their motivational goals (learning, performance approach, performance avoidance, and work avoidance), which were hypothesized to subsequently predict academic performance (final test score and grade point average), over and above the effects of prior mid-term performance. However, neither locus of control, personal, nor external control attributions predicted any of the motivational goals; only stability attributions predicted to learning goals. Students’ stability attribution for success also predicted learning goals, and their stability attributions for failure predicted performance approach goals. A new profile approach was implemented to identify learned helpless students, as the existing measurement of learned helplessness was found to be inadequate. Controllability emerged as an important factor for learned helpless students, who perceived low personal control and high external control over the causes of their academic success and failure. Intelligence beliefs, whether entity or incremental, showed no significant predictions to motivational goals; but, self-efficacy did. Students who had high self-efficacy beliefs were more likely to hold learning goals, performance approach goals, and performance avoidance goals, and less likely to hold work avoidance goals. Learning goals predicted students’ final test scores, whereas performance approach goals predicted grade point average scores. Intrinsic religiosity predicted learning goals, performance approach goals, and work avoidance goals; ethnic importance predicted performance approach goals. A multiple goals approach was engaged to add more knowledge to the Indonesian university students’ motivation. Based on the multiple goals approach, four clusters of students holding different goal profiles were educed: high learning/low performance-work avoidance, high work avoidance/low learning-performance, high motivational goals, and high learning-performance/low work avoidance. The approach showed that multiple goals co-existed and that high learning/low performance-work avoidance students had the highest final test scores, while high work avoidance/low learning-performance students had the lowest. Gender differences occurred on work avoidance goals, on which men scored higher. Ethnic differences occurred on intrinsic religiosity, on which Native Indonesian participants scored higher. Religion differences occurred on both religious behaviour and intrinsic religiosity; Christian participants had highest scores on religious behaviour, and Hindu participants had highest intrinsic religiosity. This study adds more knowledge to the study of attribution and motivational goals in the Indonesian context. For example, students with high self-efficacy can hold a performance avoidance goal, interpreted in terms of certain cultural values in the Indonesian context such as not wanting to lose face. Also, religiosity and racial/ethnic identity predicted motivational goals. Cultural differences within the Eastern cultures need to be considered when applying, interpreting, and discussing theories and scales developed in the Western.

Currently, social inequalities in education are mentioned in numerous studies that concern institutions and governments around the world. However, elite and new middle-class students generally appear to have longer and more successful learning trajectories, unlike students in a disadvantaged economical situation whose learning trajectories are marked by academic failure. This article discusses the social inclusion policies adopted by Angolan higher education institutions in the 2000s, about access to and permanence in higher education, based on the problems encountered at the time. The purpose of this article is to approach aspects related to the democratization of higher education in Angola, discussing some aspects of the fulfillment of the goals of massification and inclusion in education. In this perspective, we approach in particular the affirmative action policies concerning access and permanence, which began in the 2000s and influence the different paths toward the academic (failure) of students. The study is based on a literature review and document analysis. It is concluded that mass access to education is not enough, it is necessary to guarantee permanence in the university, that is, the student must conclude with the expected academic success in the stipulated time.

The large proportion of dropout students from higher education has become a major concern in many industrialized countries. Despite consistent evidence of the association between social origin and dropout behaviour, it is unclear through which mechanisms social origin influences trajectories and educational outcomes in higher education, especially in countries with low financial costs for higher education studies. This study builds on the compensatory advantage mechanism to investigate the relationship between social origin, academic failure in higher education and dropout behaviour. Using a French longitudinal survey and event history analysis, results confirm that academic failure in the first year of higher education is a strong predictor of dropout, even after controlling for academic readiness for higher education. Supporting the compensatory advantage hypothesis, students from advantaged backgrounds are much less likely to drop out after academic failure than disadvantaged students and this result also holds for high-performing high-school graduates. These results stress the importance of taking into account the interplay between social origin and academic performance during higher education to reduce dropout behaviour.

Peer mentoring programs (PMPs) are increasingly used in higher education, yet evidence of their dual effects on mentors' leadership and trainees' musical self-efficacy remains limited in higher music education, particularly in non-Western conservatoire contexts. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed. Quantitative data were collected from 32 peer mentor-peer trainee pairs (N = 64) participating in a two-month mentoring program, with leadership and musical self-efficacy measured at pretest, posttest, and one-month follow-up. Within-group changes were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA. Semi-structured interviews with 20 participants were conducted to further explore mentoring experiences and underlying mechanisms. Peer mentors demonstrated significant and sustained improvements in leadership behaviors, whereas leadership change among trainees was limited. In contrast, peer trainees showed substantial and sustained gains in musical self-efficacy, while mentors' self-efficacy exhibited only modest change. Qualitative findings indicated that mentors developed greater organizational awareness and role responsibility, while trainees benefited from emotional support, targeted feedback, and vicarious learning. This study demonstrates that peer mentoring programs can be effectively integrated into higher music education. Participation in structured peer mentoring was associated with leadership development among mentors and improved musical self-efficacy among trainees, highlighting the value of role-based peer interaction as a complementary approach to traditional conservatoire pedagogy.

Academic challenges and failure are inevitable in pursuit of higher education. According to the self-worth theory, trying hard but failing implies low ability that would be a threat to personal worth, thus preventing students from approaching academic challenges. Nevertheless, previous studies have shown that students in the Confucian-heritage contexts (CHCs) tend to persist rather than quit in the face of academic failure. According to the role obligation theory of self-cultivation (ROT), the CHC learners would perceive academic failure from personal and interpersonal perspectives. The former refers to personal obligations to exert oneself toward the ultimate good, and the latter refers to fulfilling filial obligations to parents by achieving academic excellence. Given the fundamental differences in learners’ perceptions of academic failure between the CHCs and the Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) contexts, this study examined the applicability of the quadripolar model of achievement motivation based on the self-worth theory in a CHC higher education institution. Results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported a two-factor model of fear of failure, including a personal and an interpersonal subfactor. Latent class analysis (LCA) showed that apart from the four existing categories of the quadripolar model, two additional CHC categories emerged and constituted half of the sample. The two CHC categories demonstrated different learner characteristics compared with their corresponding quadripolar categories in terms of levels of emotional distress and academic risk-taking tendency. The results may help debunk the myth that learner characteristics in the CHCs are identical to those observed in the WEIRD contexts. The fundamental differences in fear of failure further indicated the inadequacy of the self-worth theory in explaining achievement motivation in the CHCs where relationalism and role obligations are significant parts of the cultural traditions.

The academic success or failure of students in higher education institutions necessitates an in-depth investigation of the content of education and the factors influencing it. This article provided a scientific analysis of the key factors affecting students’ academic performance and examined the interrelation between these factors and the academic environment. The scientific and practical relevance of the study is grounded in the increasing demand for quality education and the growing influence of the educational environment on students’ academic outcomes. The purpose of the research was to identify the main factors influencing academic success among university students and to provide a comprehensive understanding of their interaction with the academic environment. The study employed systematic analysis, comparative method, survey, interview, and correlation analysis. The research involved students from higher education institutions in Kyrgyzstan. The findings revealed that internal motivation, pedagogical competence of instructors, the psychological climate of the educational environment, academic support, and collaboration among students significantly impacted academic success. The academic environment was conceptualised through three core components: infrastructural, axiological, and communicative-organisational. The analysis showed that academic failure was often linked to insufficient learning and living conditions, instructors’ attitudes toward students, and discrepancies between institutional corporate culture and its ideal model. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that, for the first time, the interrelationship between the factors shaping students’ academic success and the academic environment has been examined in a comprehensive manner. The practical value of the study is that its results can support higher education administrators, faculty, and policymakers in making effective decisions aimed at improving the academic environment. Consequently, this contributes directly to enhancing students’ educational achievements

The integration of peer mentoring into academic programmes as a mechanism for supporting new students has received considerable attention in higher education worldwide, especially in developed countries. Despite a growing body of research on peer mentoring in higher education, an extensive review of the benefits of this approach is needed to establish a nuanced understanding of the impacts of peer mentoring on students across various contexts. This study employed a systematic review method to examine the benefits of peer mentoring in higher education. The review covered research articles about peer mentoring published within the last decade (2013−2023). The findings showed that the benefits of peer mentoring in higher education could be categorised into four fundamental aspects, including academic performance, retention rates, emotional and psychological wellbeing, and social integration. These categories of benefits could be developed into a conceptual framework for studying the impacts or benefits of peer mentoring in higher education. The study highlights the significance of adopting peer mentoring as a supportive scheme for students encountering critical challenges due to its manifold benefits and points to the importance of identifying the varying factors contributing to the success of peer-mentoring schemes. The study concludes with a discussion and the implications of the findings, as well as suggestions for future research to examine how peer mentoring could be effectively implemented in different educational contexts.

European nursing students' academic success or failure: A post-Bologna Declaration systematic review

Higher education (HE) is often viewed as a conduit for social mobility through which working-class students can secure improved life-chances. However, the link between HE and social mobility is largely viewed as unproblematic. Little research has explored the possible impact of academic failure (in HE) on the trajectories of working-class students or the ways in which working-class students may re-construct their career aspirations as a result of such academic failure. This paper seeks to fill this apparent gap by focusing on a group of non-traditional students enrolled on a BA undergraduate programme in a post-1992 university. Utilising Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, the paper identifies how academic failure contributes to possible trajectory interruptions and whether these are temporary or possibly permanent. It specifically focuses on how working-class students interpret and respond to their academic failure and the possible impact this has on their social mobility.

Sutherland and Singh (2004) focus on the relationship between students’ inappropriate behaviors and academic failure, articulating how this relationship may be mediated by learned helplessness in a reciprocally negative reinforcing cycle. In responding to their work, the authors suggest a thread of disciplined inquiry and contextual framework for their research. They also note the need for clearer terminology in this area, the necessity of incorporating the broader context of motivation and how it relates to learning, and the need for a multivariate approach broader than the learned helplessness/problem behavior/failure cycle. Finally they suggest a prototypical working model that might help support future research in this area.

The aim of this research is to examine the reasons for school dropout occurring at varying education levels in the Turkish education system (TES). In this direction, research on school dropout pertaining to TES has been targeted. The systematic data analysis method was used in the research. 47 studies suitable for the purposes of the study were analyzed through content analysis. A total of 290 coding processes were carried out. According to the results of the research, the family factor comes to the fore in the causes of school dropout in primary education in TES. The inadequacy of families’ financial situation and low interest in education are effective. At the high school level, students' academic failure, absenteeism, peer pressure, and indifference of families appear as the causes of school dropouts. In higher education, difficulties learners experience in adapting to novel social environments, academic failure, financial problems and the thought of being a misfit for the selected department seem to be amongst the causes of school dropout. In the other group, the reasons of dropping out are determined as academic failure, financial difficulties, early marriages, dislike of school, indifference of family, negative effects of friend groups and indifference towards school.

Peer mentoring in higher education is regarded as an effective intervention to ensure the success and retention of vulnerable students. Many universities and colleges have therefore implemented some form of mentoring program as part of their student support services. While considerable research supports the use of peer mentoring to improve academic performance and decrease student attrition, few studies link peer mentoring functions with the type of peer best suited to fulfill these functions. This literature review categorizes the abundant student peer mentor descriptors found in mentoring research. The result is a preliminary taxonomy that classifies ten peer mentor characteristics according to mentoring function served (career‐related or psychosocial). The proposed taxonomy and the discussion developed in this article help shed light on the dynamics of successful student peer mentoring relationships in higher education.

Students who enter higher education as independent students do not bring with them the financial and familial support that their dependent counterparts experience. When these needs are not met, their likelihood of graduating is decreased. One method that has shown promise for addressing support that promotes belonging and well-being is peer mentorship. The following study presents data collected from students at a western, urban, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) who participated in a program designed for supporting financial, academic, and emotional needs of independent students. A community based participatory research (CBPR) framework was implemented to design the peer mentorship model, develop the evaluation plan, complete data collection and analysis, and guide dissemination. We used a mixed methods design collecting both survey and listening tour data simultaneously regarding students’ support networks, sense of belonging, and perspectives of the peer mentoring model. While the evidence for the efficacy of peer mentorship is abundant, the inclusion of a CBPR framework in higher education has not been well explored. Key findings demonstrated that the use of a CBPR framework for development and evaluation of peer mentoring increased the mentor’s sense of belonging and increased engagement with their community. Similarly, mentees identified that peer mentorship increased their sense of belonging, particularly when their mentor had a shared identity, beyond that of student, that allowed for an unspoken understanding of lived experience. Recommendations for higher education to support the emotional well-being and sense of belonging among independent students will be presented.

Predicting and resolving non-completion in higher (online) education – A literature review