Academic success: Is it just about the grades?

Abstract

Researchers examining academic success often quantify it in terms of assessment grades. This assumption is questioned here by considering the students' understanding of academic success. The presented study aimed to identify students' views of its definition and the factors they perceive as crucial in attaining it. Sixteen undergraduate Psychology students at a modern university in London, United Kingdom took part in one of three focus groups. Participants defined academic success as: the accomplishment of the learning process; gaining subject knowledge; and developing employability skills. Thematic analysis of the collected data resulted in two themes: intrinsic factors, including motivation, self-directed learning and personal skills; and extrinsic factors, including teaching content and the student support structure. The discussion of these results at the conference led to the conclusion that achieving academic success and minimising skill gaps for employability post qualification requires the intrinsic elements to be addressed as an integral part of the compulsory programme rather than presented as optional add-ons. VignetteA second-year student requested an urgent appointment for academic advice from her personal tutor. She demanded an explanation of how the degree classification was calculated to make sure she pitched her efforts correctly for the upcoming assessments, in order to achieve the final grade that she had in mind (which was a 2:1). Her reasoning was that in order to maximise her employability, it was crucial to balance her time between achieving the required grade and gaining the appropriate level of work experience.

Employability: Smart learning in extracurricular activities for developing college graduates' competencies

“…Various stakeholders, particularly employers, are looking for new graduates who have academic qualifications and are job ready. At the same time, the definition of student success has been changing from academic performance to job readiness (Cachia et al, 2018). The source data for predicting student success has been extended from engagement in academic learning activities to extracurricular activities (Hui et al, 2018).…”

Students’ Conceptions of Academic Success: Themes, Guiding Lines and Contradictions

“…Иногда такие исследования даже проводятся самими студентами [9] . Показано, что для студентов процесс обучения является не менее важным, чем результат, а в их ответах звучит важность для успешности обучения и внутренних (индивидуальные особенности студентов), и внешних (от помощи со стороны учебного заведения до финансовой стабильности) факторов [6]; в качестве маркеров успешности студенты упоминают не только оценки, но и собственную вовлеченность в обучение, и переживание позитивных эмоций в процессе [12; 13], а также затраченные усилия и стрессовость обучения [11] . Важность в понимании своей успешности оценок как таковых не отрицается студентами, но успешными могут считаться как высшие, так и просто проходные баллы [11; 14] .…”

Role of Personal Factors in Epistemological Access to Higher Education: Comparison of Public and Private Universities in Pakistan

“…This low standard of intellectual activity where students are mere passive learners spoon-fed by the teachers further weakens students' willingness to learn as they don't find themselves capable of taking new challenges and switching to the new learning approaches (Rahim &Ros, 2016;Omar &Arif, 2019b;Arif& Omar, 2019). Moreover, conventional academic achievement criteria certifies success in the form of grades which can be easily secured by retrieval and imitation of the knowledge transmitted by the teacher without any in-depth exhaustive thinking and elaborative effort on the part of students in exploring sources outside classroomfor a valued end (Skourdoumbis, 2014;York, Gibson & Rankin, 2015;Cachia, Lynam & Stock, 2018). Even those who can produce high quality work are not willing to put effort because they soon realize that the quizzes and exams are just a test of memory, and plagiarized assignments and projects are safely credited by the teachers.…”