Success and failure of freshmen at university: a search for determinants

This study explores the relationships between achievement at university and self-reported characteristics of students and their social environment. Subjects were 240 college freshmen. They were interviewed twice. The first interview covered their social and study experiences during the first semester, and the second one dealt with the preparation of the final examinations in the first year. Determinants of academic achievement were selected on the basis of significant correlations (p<.01) with the grades obtained from the final examinations in the freshmen year. The findings revealed that midterm performance was most strongly related with final examination grades. Next in order were academic self-esteem, expectancies and efficiency of study strategies. Other personal factors such as study effort, interest in the study option, ability to understand lectures, prior knowledge and fear of exams were identified as moderate determinants; followed by external determinants such as help from others, information on exams and exam difficulty which were weakly associated with achievement. Unlike previous research, this study attempts to provide an overall framework of the characteristics that determine learning outcome based on the intercorrelations. Multidimensional scaling analyses revealed that characteristics are structured along two main dimensions: causal locus (internal vs. external) and control (controllable vs. uncontrollable). Overall, the findings corroborate the associations reported in previous studies on determinants of academic attainment. Similarities between the present data and attributional studies on causes of student outcome, as well as potential implications and limitations for remedial purposes, are discussed.