Previous Academic Achievement Research Articles

Achievement Difficulties for the Academically Gifted

This case study identifies a gifted student who, in consideration of previous academic achievement, should be performing exceptionally well. The student, however, has a 4 year history of withdrawing from and failing courses, avoids studying, and occasionally rallies at the 11th hour for an average performance.

Selection for vocational courses at university: Part I ‐ perspectives of the employers of graduates

Explores the criteria used by industrial recruitment personnel in the selection of graduates from Hotel and Catering Management courses for management trainee positions in the hospitality industry. Reports on a study which is part of a wider investigation into the extent to which criteria employed for the admission to professionally or vocationally oriented university courses cover, or fail to cover, the criteria used for recruitment to employment positions, following the completion of such courses. Describes a series of extensive interviews with senior recruiters from 11 large UK hospitality organizations. Concludes that, in the recruitment of management trainees, first, considerable emphasis is placed on applicants’ motivation and commitment and also on certain personality aspects that are regarded as important for the industry; second, applicants’ home circumstances also influence recruitment decisions; third, little, if any, attention is paid to applicants’ previous academic career and/or achievement; lastly, industrial recruiters appear to rely largely on their own personal judgements and hunches, notwithstanding the fact that they are recognized to be subjective and, possibly, unreliable.

Students' academic performance in nursing as a function of student and faculty learning style congruency.

The purposes of this study were to identify learning styles of traditional baccalaureate nursing students, registered nurse baccalaureate students, baccalaureate nursing students holding a previous non-nursing degree, and nursing educators and to determine the effects of teacher/student learning style congruency on academic performance, when controlled for students' previous academic achievement. Kolb's Learning Style Inventory and a Descriptive Data Questionnaire were administered to 334 nursing students and their respective nurse educators from two nursing schools in Mississippi. Learning style scores were computed and faculty and student learning style congruency was described as: 1) matched on both abstract-concrete and active-reflective dimensions; 2) matched on only the abstract-concrete dimension; 3) matched on only the active-reflective dimension; or 4) not matched on either dimension. There were no significant differences in learning style among the three groups of nursing students, and learning style congruency between student and faculty did not appear to significantly affect academic performance of students.

Expectancy and academic achievement

Two possible explanations of the relationship between expectancy and subsequent academic achievement were formulated and tested. The assumption that goal setting, by influencing actual and intended effort expenditure, might also determine both expectancy and subsequent performance, and thereby explain the relationship between the latter two variables, found little support. The hypothesis that expectancy determines how hard people work and thereby how well they perform found support only in a male group. Moreover, when previous academic achievement, goal setting, and effort expenditure were all controlled, expectancy was still found to relate to subsequent grades for both women and men. It was concluded that neither goal theory nor effort calculation theory could fully account for the relationship between expectancy and academic achievement.

The Prediction of Long-Term Academic Performance After the Completion of a Study Skills Course

For one year after the completion of a study skills course 61 participants were followed to determine the (a) attrition rate of students who differed in personality type and previous academic achievement level, (b) level of academic performance, and (c) ability to predict academic performance from personality type, previous academic achievement, and study skills difference scores. The results showed no differences in attrition rates, significant increases in academic performance, and the factors predictive of GPA varied over time. The results suggest that factors related to academic performance may change as a function of the demands of a university environment.

THE STUDENT SELECTION PROCESS IN THREE COUNTRIES

Of ninety institutions in three countries surveyed by a mail questionnaire, responses were received from 68 baccalaureate programmes in physiotherapy, a return rate of 76%. Selection criteria for all programmes were shown to be multiple, with the student's previous academic achievement used in every instance. A proportion of programmes indicated the use of objective measures of ability, interest and personality but rarely were these used in any combination. The majority of programmes use the interview, references, student's objectives and experience in physical therapy in combination. No respondents indicated specific weighting for any of these factors and the questionnaire did not seek this information specifically.

College Scholastic Progress Patterns as Predictive Indices for Counseling

THE PROBLEM of being misled by predictive information is especially important to American higher education at this critical period of rapid ex pansion. Prospective and currently enrolled c o 1 lege students need realistic counseling in regard to their college plans. This is a report of the devel opment of some college scholastic progress pat terns which may be more valid and more useful as predictive information for counseling than that which is presently available. The basic idea underlying the development o f this information is that of describing the actual in-college performance of former students of a college and then using this description as a pattern for the expected progress of prospective or cur rently enrolled students of that college. The de scription of former students was obtained by se lecting various homogeneous groups of former stu dents and then charting the progress of each group over a four semester period. The progress of each group included both an achievement aspect and a persistence aspect. Achievement is shown by the proportion of each group in each of four grade-point average ranges. The persistence as pect is shown by the proportion of each group leaving at various times over a two year period. Whether or not these departures are voluntary i s also shown. The development of these progress patterns be gan with two basic premises: 1) that the two fac tors most significantly related to college scholas tic progress are previous academic achievement and scholastic ability; and 2) that the scholastic progress made by prospective or currently enrolled students of a college will be essentially the same as progress made by previously enrolled students of that college. Many studies have reported the relationship of the two factors, ability and previous achievement, to college grade-point averages. Travers** has reviewed predictive studies of this kind at all edu cational levels, and Garrett2 has done so for pre dictions in liberal arts colleges. An aspect of progress other than college grade point average, however, is that of staying power or, stated negatively, tendency to leave college. Table I presents some evidence to show the significance of the relationship of the two factors, ability and pre vious achievement, to staying power or tendency to leave college. In Table L, consider the men of low scholastic promise, that is, those who scored a mong the lowest third on the College Qualification Test and who earned less than a C average the first semester: 29.2% of this group left voluntarily be fore the junior year as compared with 16. 9% of the men with high scholastic promise; likewise 54. 6% of the low scholastic promise group was dropped as compared with only 1.2% of the high scholastic promise group. The effect of previous achievement and scholastic ability on departures is also shown for the women. In the case of women, however, ability and previous achievement have little effect upon voluntary departures. Evidence in support of the second premise, con cerning the relationship of the progress of current ly enrolled students to former students, is presented in Tables n and III. Table n shows the similarities from year to year for the grade-point average as pect of progress. There was little variation in mean grade-point averages from year to year over a 10 year period. For example, consider the sec ond column in Table n. This column shows 10 dif ferent groups of freshman men in the College of Letters and Science, each group being present for the second semester in the year shown. The range of the mean grade-point averages shown in the third column is 2. 22 to 2. 32. There is no trend upward or downward in terms of grade-point average, but there is an upward trend in the size of the groups, reflecting enrollment increases. Each of these groups is, of course, quite heterogeneous in re spect to academic background, scholastic ability, and many other factors. The columns for s o p h o mores, juniors, and seniors similarly show little variation in mean grade-point averages from year to year. Furthermore, differences between the mean grade-point averages of the four classes re presented are essentially the same from year to

A Study of the Relation between Achievement in Required Courses and Subsequent Academic Record in the College of Engineering, Cornell University

College life is a very complex and variable phenomenon; in the strict sense, it is as broad and imponderable as life in general, hence success or failure in college is difficult to de fine and to predict with a high degree of re liability, according to Wood.1 He indicates that success in college depends upon several important factors, namely, a minimum of native intelligence, a minimum of preparation, character and moral habits, the direct influ ence of health, interest, adjustment to aca demic load, and adequate management of worry and distractions.2 It is to be expected, then, that not all of the students who begin a college course will complete it. This is true in the College of Engineering at Cornell University where this study was made. Out of eleven hundred and four stu dents3 who entered the College as freshmen in the years 1929, 1930, 1931 and 1932, a total of 687 graduated in their respective senior years: 1933, 1934, 1935, and 1936. In other words, 62.2 per cent of these freshmen survived to graduate. The others voluntarily left college, were dropped by faculty action, or transferred to other colleges.4 Any facts which may throw light on the question of which students will survive and graduate are important. The limitations of data in any restricted investigation must be considered. Some students of mental and educational measurement believe that the the best single measure of academic achievement is previous academic achievement. Slightly less valid for predicting academic achievement are scholastic-aptitude tests, commonly called intelligence tests. This study undertakes to determine the success or failure of students in selected courses and to follow through to senior year a large group of engineering students to get some light on these questions.