Fernando Ribeiro Gonçalves, Sandra Valadas, Carla Vilhena & Luís FaíscaPermanent Observatory for Teaching and Learning Quality (OPQE)University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal IntroductionIntroductionThis poster presents students´ point of view about the reasons for their academic failure, according to their academic experience. No theories, no hypothesis, no discussion will be presented here! We are just looking for a «grounded theory» emerging from your comments to our data.

Students´ point of view about the reasons of Students´ point of view about the reasons of academic failure in higher educationacademic failure in higher educationStudents´ point of view about the reasons of Students´ point of view about the reasons of academic failure in higher educationacademic failure in higher education

MethodMethodParticipants

During the last registration period at the University of Algarve, we have collected the beliefs of more than 6000 graduation students about academic achievement and motivation. A self-filling questionnaire was used to gather data.

Figure 2 – Multidimensional scaling for preferences among explanations; the mst is also represented

Level N %Very weak

198 3.1

Weak107

416.9

Sufficient

3290

51.7

Good168

926.6

Very good

108 1.7

Total635

9100.0

Explanation 01Explanation 01 – I don´t know how to study

Explanation 02Explanation 02 – I´m not motivated for studying

Explanation 03 Explanation 03 – I share my attention with other activities

Explanation 04Explanation 04 – The place where I study is not the most adequate

Explanation 05Explanation 05 – I miss a lot of theoretical classes

Explanation 06Explanation 06 – I miss a lot of practical classes

Explanation 07Explanation 07 – I don´t keep the contents of subjects updated

Explanation 08Explanation 08 – I don´t take notes in classes

Explanation 09 Explanation 09 – I don´t organise my notes after classes

Explanation 10Explanation 10 – I don´t ask teachers for help

Explanation 11Explanation 11 – Other reasons

Variables measured

We asked students to evaluate their academic performance, using a 5 point scale ranging from «very weak» to «very good».

For those students who judged their academic performance as «weak» or «very weak», we asked them to choose one or more possible explanations among several alternatives:

ResultsResultsTable 1 presents the distribution of students according to their estimated level of academic performance (Mean = 2,93, SD = 0,79).

Figure 1 plots the same evaluation against the academic year.

DiscussionDiscussionWe invited you to present some comments to our results, using the form attached to this poster. If you are interested in this subject, please provide us with your coordinates. We are looking for contacts for joint research in higher education field.

Table 1 Figure 1

1st Year 2nd Year 3rd Year 4th Year 5th Year

Aca

dem

ic p

erfo

rman

ce e

valu

atio

n

2,0

2,5

3,0

3,5

4,0

A multidimensional scaling representation was used to illustrate the proximity between the explanations chosen, due to the co-occurrences on students´response.

A minimum spanning tree (mst) connecting explanations shows a radial structure that emerges from Explanation 02. Patterns of response are easly identified.

Dimension 1

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3

Dim

en

sio

n 2

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

Expl 01

Expl 03

Expl 10Expl 02

Expl 09

Expl 08

Expl 04

Expl 07

Expl 05

Expl 06

Expl 11

Stress = 0.10

Figure 3 –Responses profiles for 1st versus 5th academic year (percentage + upper confidence limit 95%)

The next analysis will be restricted to those students that evaluated their academic performance as weak or very weak (N = 1272).

In order to evaluate the effect of academic experience in beliefs about the reasons of an academic poor performance, we compare the percentages of students choosing each type of explanation in the 1st and in the 5th academic year.

Explanations for weak academic performance

Expl 01 Expl 02 Expl 03 Expl 04 Expl 05 Expl 06 Expl 07 Expl 08 Expl 09 Expl 10 Expl 11

Pe

rce

nta

ge

+ C

I95

%

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1st Year

5th Year