Work In Progress - An Analysis of Students ’ Academic Success and Persistence Using Pre-College Factors

This work-in-progress presents results of an on-going investigation to understand the extent to which first-year engineering students´ noncognitive self-beliefs are related to success following the freshman year. For this research, students´ scores across nine measures (academic self-efficacy, academic motivation, leadership, metacognition, major indecision, learner type (deep vs. surface), teamwork, and expectancy-value), obtained prior to the freshman year, have been used to create homogeneous groups (or profiles) of students with shared perceptions of their noncognitive abilities. Success has been operationalized in terms of grade-point-ratio, persistence, and scores across the above mentioned factors at the end of the students´ first-year experience. Results of this study indicate the degree to which specific profiles predicted relevant outcomes in engineering education