UNESCO reports enrollment in higher education in the Arab and Gulf Cooperation Council region doubled from 5.1 million in 2000 to 10.7 million in 2015. Despite significant budgets and the world’s lowest teacher-to-student ratio, higher education in this region is plagued by student underachievement. This study identifies academic underachievement factors among undergraduate students at risk at a national university in the GCC. As part of the Intrusive Intervention Program, students were required to complete an Academic Success Plan that delineated academic, personal, social, career, and other academic underachievement reasons. Based on 5,040 students’ responses that indicated their academic underachievement causes, findings reported that students perceived academic factors as the most recurrent reason for academic underachievement. In contrast, social adjustment causes were found to be the least recurrent. Specific causes are reported under each category and discussion is provided against gender, nationality, major, and classification.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.