Early Assessment of Cognitive Skills, Self-Regulated Learning Skills, and Attitudes toward Education Predict University Success at Graduation

Abstract

Considerable research has been conducted on the incremental or individual influences of cognitive skills, self-regulated learning skills, and attitudes toward education on the success of learners in many levels of educational inquiry. In addition, much work has been focused on predicting student success in the first year of college, or examining factors that promote retention only for the second semester or second academic year. In this study, we expand this focus by examining the interactive nature of these three domains of student characteristics over the course of the entire students’ experience in higher education. Specifically, using seven years of institutional data, we explored the predictive utility of measures of students’ cognitive skills, self-regulated learning skills, attitudes toward education, and academic anxiety prior to the start of their first semester on graduating grade point average for anyone completing a degree within six years of matriculation. Review of the results demonstrates that while all of the variables were instrumental in explaining university success, the best explanation of the data was achieved through a partial moderated mediation model. Furthermore, the patterns of these relationships for first-generation and non-first-generation students differed. We interpret the results in support for a model of early assessment to identify areas of need for learners to promote more adaptive coping strategies at the start of the university experience to support optimal graduation outcomes for both first-generation and non-first-generation learners.