Elements Influencing Study Success

Abstract

Study success can be influenced by following factors: (i) social elements (social class position, parents' education, parents' profession, parents' income); (ii) student-related factors (motivation, aptitude, effort, IQ, time spend on study, opportunity to learn, pre-university education); (iii) quality of instruction (organisation, course material, communication, assignments, exams, grading, course outcomes); (iv) curriculum (number of courses, sequence of courses, test schedule, system-block or parallel); (v) government (grant, student accommodation). In the paper the influence of these factors on study success is presented. Social and academic integration are central aspects. In the research we found out that "social elements" greatly influence the decision to enrol, but have less influence on marks received and the duration of study. Grants also greatly influence study success. We were surprised when we found out that factors from the "quality of instruction" group can only explain 12.3% of the variance of exam results.