fernando ribeiro gonçalves, sandra valadas, carla vilhena & luís faísca
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The meanings of academic failure in higher education. Fernando Ribeiro Gonçalves, Sandra Valadas, Carla Vilhena & Luís Faísca Permanent Observatory for Teaching and Learning Quality (OPQE) University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal. Introduction - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Fernando Ribeiro Gonçalves, Sandra Valadas, Carla Vilhena & Luís FaíscaPermanent Observatory for Teaching and Learning Quality (OPQE)University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal
IntroductionIntroduction
What meanings students attribute to academic failure in a higher education context? Is this meanings dependent on students´ academic experience? This poster displays the data we have collected among University of Algarve students. No theories, no hypothesis or discussion will be presented! We are just
looking for a «grounded theory» emerging from your comments to data.
The meanings of academic failure in higher educationThe meanings of academic failure in higher education
MethodMethod
Participants
During the last registration period at the University of Algarve, we have
collected the beliefs of more than 6000 graduation students about
academic achievement and motivation. A self-filling questionnaire was
used to gather data.
Figure 2 – Multidimensional scaling for co-occurence of meaning attribution to academic failure. The mst is represented.
Meaning 01 – Reason for not keeping on studying
Meaning 02 – Reason for familiar worries
Meaning 03 – Source of financial problems
Meaning 04 – Reason for the weakness of self confidence
Meaning 05 – Reason for academic desertion
Meaning 06 – Just a question of bad luck
Meaning 07 – Reason for lack of academic motivation
Variables measured
In order to understand what students think about the occurrence of an
academic failure, we asked them to attribute one or more possible
meanings to that failure. A closed question was used and the
categories available for response were:
ResultsResultsFigure 1 –Percentage of students choosing possible different meanings for
academic failure (percentage + upper confidence limit 95%)
DiscussionDiscussion
We invite you to present some comments to our results, using the form attached to this poster. If you are interested in this subject, please provide us with your coordinates. We are looking for contacts for joint research in higher education field.
A multidimensional scaling representation is used to illustrate the co-occurrence of the meanings chosen by each student.
A minimum spanning tree (mst) connecting meanings shows a radial structure that emerges from Meaning 4 (academic failure as reason for the weakness of self-confidence).
Figure 3 – Responses profiles for each academic year (percentage + upper confidence limit 95%)
In order to illustrate the effect of student experience in the process of
meaning attribution to academic failure, Figure 3 shows the comparison
among academic years for each type of meaning considered.
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Meaning 1 Meaning 2 Meaning 3 Meaning 4 Meaning 5 Meaning 6 Meaning 7
%
Students may choose more than one category.
-1
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Dimension 1
Dim
ensio
n 2
Meaning 4
Meaning 2
Meaning 5Meaning 6
Meaning 7
Meaning 3
Meaning 1
Stress = 0.005
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1st Year 2nd Year 3rd Year 4th Year 5th Year
Meaning 1 Meaning 3 Meaning 5 Meaning 7
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1st Year 2nd Year 3rd Year 4th Year 5th Year
Meaning 2 Meaning 4 Meaning 6