Session 11a7
Predicting Success in a First Year Engineering Course:
The Role of Study Habits
Larry G. Richards *, Herbert C. Richards **, and Dana C. Sheridan**
*School of Engineering and Applied Science, **Curry School of Education
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Va 22903
Abstract – What factors influence the success of
engineering students in their first year courses? Our
students have been selected to represent a very limited
range of intellectual abilities; they have high SAT scores
and good high school grades. Therefore any performance
differences must be due to other factors. Others have
studied the role of learning styles, attitudes, and
personality traits. In this paper, we attempt to predict
academic performance based on our students’ study habits.
Introduction
Every year we admit “ the best and the brightest” to the
School of Engineering and Applied Science at the
University of Virginia. Based on their SATs, high school
GPAs and school/extracurricular activities, they are a group
of bright, hard working, disciplined, and motivated students
ready to master a complex technical field.
THEN….they arrive! Somehow, this homogeneous
group of super-achievers is really quite variable. Some do
well, others don’t. Most complain about the level of effort
required to get through their first year courses. A few
transfer from engineering to Arts and Sciences, some drop
out of college altogether, others remain in the program with
mediocre grades. Very few excel! Why? What has gone
wrong? Why can’t we predict who will do well in
engineering school, and who will not?
Measuring study skills
Estes and Richards [1] developed a survey of study habits
(ERISH) for use with high school and college students.
Their study skills index measured three factors for both
homework and test situations. Distractibility items assess
the degree to which students report being unable to
maintain their attention or concentrate on their task.
Inquisitiveness items measure how well students try to make
sense of the material they are studying - do they look for
essential concepts or deeper meaning? Compulsiveness
items assess the degree to which students attend to details
and try to remember facts.
Blumner and Richards [2] conducted a survey of study
habits among a sample of first year engineering students at
0-7803-5643-8/99/$10.00 © 1999 IEEE
29th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
11a7-5
the University of Virginia, and obtained SAT scores and
grade point averages for the 69 students in their sample.
They found that students who are more inquisitive and less
distractible performed better in their classes, and that the
effects of study habits were apparent even when the effects
of academic aptitude were controlled.
Design of this study
For the last two years, we have administered this index of
study habits to all first year engineering students at the
University of Virginia, and monitored their performance in
a particular class (Engineering Concepts). The first year, all
students completed both forms (test and homework) of the
survey early in the semester and then completed the test
form again late in the course. The following year we
administered the ERISH only once during the course.
In this paper, we address three questions: Do the key
results of Blumner and Richards replicate with a much
larger sample size? Can we predict the academic
performance of our students based on their study habits?
And, are there differential patterns of factors of study based
on gender for the engineering students in our sample?
One reason for identifying deficiencies in study habits is
to develop ways to improve them. We want to make
students aware of strategies for optimal learning, and help
them learn to use these habits for personal success.
References
1. Estes, T.H. and Richards, H.C. Habits of Study and Test
Performance, Journal of Reading Behavior, Vol 17, 1985,
1-13.
2. Blumner, H.N. and Richards, H.C. Study Habits and
Academic Achievement of Engineering Students, Journal of
Engineering Education, Vol.86, No.2, April, 1997, 125-
132.
November 10 - 13, 1999 San Juan, Puerto Rico