Students’ failure and dropped-outs

According to Wilfred (2018), if a student fails or gets less marks in exams, he/she is weak

in one or more of the above factors. Sometimes, a student studies a lot but he gets less marks in

exam because he may not be aware of effective strategies in taking tests—which tells him/her to

express his learning in best way in exam or reproduce his learning in a good way in exam to

convince the checker to give you more marks.

Furthermore, academic failure is an important and personal event in the lives of

university students, and the ways they make sense of experiences of failure matters for their

persistence and future success. To illuminate this world-wide problem, we analyzed institutional

data at a large, comprehensive Australian university and surveyed 186 undergraduate students

who had failed at least one unit of study in 2016, but were still enrolled in 2017. Academic

failure increased the likelihood of course attrition by 4.2 times. The students who failed and

persisted attributed academic failure to a confluence of dispositional, situational, and institutional

factors. There was a compounded effect of academic failure on already-vulnerable students

resulting in strong negative emotions. Viewing persistence as an interaction between individuals

and their sociocultural milieu opens up different avenues for research and considerations for

support. (Ajjawi, Dracup, Zacharias, et.al 2019).

In connection to that, most of the students do not know the proper method of studying

(studyanexam, 2017). The article further explicated that students think that studying means

merely reading the words of their lessons; studying means to learn and understand.

Gorman (2020) can also be used to conceptualize educational failure. Dissatisfaction with

university experience is a multifaceted concept referring to dissatisfaction with one’s course of

study, relationships with teachers and other students, and institutional and administrative

services. 

Carreon, Fuentes, Grafilo, et.al (2019), Failing grades is very common. Many students

got failing grades by skipping classes. They are always absent in class and sometimes they do

not participate in class. Many students from this generation never realized the importance of

education. They are contented of having a 75 in their grade. But few of the students are grade-

conscious; they study hard to get a higher grade. Unlike other students, they don’t care about

their grades. Students can get a higher grade by participating in any extracurricular and academic

subject in their schools, but some students are shy because they think they can’t do it. Many

factors can affect academic performance. The physical condition of the student has a great

impact on his/her ability to do well and understand anything. For example, if the student has poor

eyesight, he or she might not be able to read well. If the student has a hearing impairment, he or

she might not be able to listen and to understand instructions. If the student has a disease, it

might impair his or her ability to do the required work (Albert Paul S.). Failing grades is one of

the reasons why many students stop studying because, when they fail, some teachers do not give

them a chance to prove that they also deserve good grades. Some of the students do not want to

continue their studies because they are shy to see their classmates and teachers. Financial

problems and personal problems are the factors that affect the academic performance of the

students that may lead to failure. Under financial problems are the sub-problems like their

parents are unemployed with unstable income and they have many siblings. Under personal

problems, they are depressed and broken-hearted. These factors include financial problems,

personal problems, and school-related problems.

 “Determine the Causes of Academic Failure and How to Deal with It”, Bhandari (2022)

stated that, everybody hates the word failure. No-one in this universe is planning to fail. Students

struggle hard to obtain good grades and pass their tests with the necessary numbers. But several

times, with all the efforts, it can be very difficult to get a passing score. There are several causes of

academic failure. Many of these are internal causes, and others are external causes. A nation with

high rates of dropouts from high school is likely to have a low literacy rate and hence a shortage

of professionally trained individuals to run their country. Academics play a significant part in

student performance. Students with higher ranks in higher education often have a greater chance

for a career, according to the study. Students have to manage both academic life and personal life

as well.

In relevance to that, the aim of this study is to evaluate factors contributing to poor

academic performance of students in higher education.  Data was collected in 2017 from 216

students enrolled in different programs at a higher education provider in New Zealand. The

effect of factors relating to family obligations, work and social commitments, and financial

concerns were analyzed. Results showed significant relationship between academic performance

of students and their attendance. Other significant findings included the relationship between

attendance and the level of study; work shift; ethnicity; whether participants had any dependents;

and how studies were funded. Implications and limitations of this study are presented.

(Tani, Dalzell, Ehambaranathan, et.al 2019).

Furthermore, Mroczek (2022) stated that Students from lower income brackets have a

higher risk of not completing school. School misbehavior, school mobility, grade retention,

homework completion, school safety, attendance, academic self-efficacy, academic engagement,

and academic expectations were all uniquely related to grade point average and experiencing two
of the risk factors was predictive of academic failure. The developed sessions were based on self-

determination theory and motivational interviewing skills. The sessions include strategies to help

with organization, time-management, and self-advocacy. These sessions are also designed to

create a support system with peers and a trusted adult. Over the course of six small groups

students will be exposed to multiple skills. Once they learn about these different skills, students

will be guided to creating a plan and using skills that help them achieve academic success

throughout their school career.

Schneider and Preckel (2017) claimed that positive academic relationships help students

to develop a sense of belonging that protects them from feelings of loneliness that often occur in

university – especially in the first year – and thereby increase academic persistence and

satisfaction. Relationships with other students are also useful during exam periods, as they

enable students to freely compare themselves to others during their exam preparation, thereby

diminishing the likelihood that they will postpone the exams.

On the other studies, the National Society of High School Scholars (2020) said that the

students who want to succeed are often, understandably, afraid of failure. Similarly, parents of

students are afraid of seeing their children fall prey to academic failure, since so much of today’s

modern society seems to depend on academic success for upward mobility. Of course, academic

failure does not always depend on the student alone. Plenty of students find themselves in

situations that thwart their failure, often due to socioeconomic status and issues with education

inequality. Failure in small doses is actually crucial to learning. However, when students

completely fail academically, this means that they are unable to overcome the small failures over

time to learn and grow and eventually succeed. Common reasons for students’ academic failure

are fear, lack of preparation and motivation, laziness.

 Hanson (2022), verified that college dropout rates indicate that up to 32.9% of

undergraduates do not complete their degree program. First time undergraduate freshmen have

12-month dropout rate of 24.1%. Among first time bachelor degree seekers, 25.7% ultimately

dropout; among all undergraduate student, up to 40% dropout.

Li and Carroll (2017) showed that being at risk of drop-out is associated with average

marks below the institutional mean. However, academic attainment is largely absent from current

discussions about attrition beyond considerations about the prior academic attainment necessary

for admission. Our study addresses this important gap. We sought to explore the prevalence of

academic failure and its contribution to persistence and drop-out, and to understand the factors

precipitating failure and the emotional responses of students who fail and persist with their

studies.

Sahragard, Rshidi, Kazemianmoghadam, et.al (2022) stated on their research entitled

“The Effectiveness of Positive Intervention on Motivational Beliefs of Students with Academic

Failure” that one of the problems and obstacles of educational systems is academic failures that

impose unpleasant financial and attitude burdens on the educational system, family, and students.

Thus, this study aimed to examine the effectiveness of positive psychotherapy on motivational

beliefs in secondary school boy students with academic failure. Motivational beliefs are one of

the main components affecting successful learning, and if educators pay attention to this

component, learning environments will be more attractive and livelier for learners.

Academic Failure: Individual, Organizational, and Social Factors (Morelli, Chirumbolo,

Baiocco, et.al 2021). The high percentage of university dropouts in Europe underlines the

relevance of understanding which factors lead students to leave university and to be dissatisfied

with this experience. Previous studies have focused on only some predictors of academic failure.
The present study tested a structural equation model with latent variables to determine the impact

of psychological, organizational, and relational variables on the intention to drop out of

university and dissatisfaction with the university experience. An online survey was completed by

431 university students (M = 23.06, SD = 5.5, 362 females) recruited from different courses at

several Italian universities. Results showed that the intention to drop out of university was

negatively related to self-efficacy, institutional commitment, and academic integration, and

positively related to an external locus of control. Dissatisfaction with the university experience

was negatively associated with self-efficacy, institutional commitment, and academic integration.

Implications for preventive programs and interventions are presented.

“Education and Parenting in the Philippines”. Filipino families place a high value on

children’s educational achievement. Providing for children’s education is a primary goal of

Filipino parents and conversely, children consider educational success as the means by which

they can meet filial obligations and parental expectations. Interdependence in Filipino families is

such that education-related decisions and behaviors reflect on family rather than individual

welfare. This chapter presents the current Philippine education system and its challenges vis-a-

vis this cultural context of the Filipino family, focusing particularly on families belonging to the

lower socioeconomic class. Major education reforms known as the K-12 law occurred in 2013,

expanding basic education to 13 years, but issues with low quality and ineffective resource

allocation remain. Poverty has significant effects on student enrollment and completion rates,

especially at the secondary or high school level. Given socioeconomic constraints, Filipino

parents employ strategies to meet their family’s education aspirations, such as overseas

migration. (Alampay & Garcia, 2019).

 However, in our study, students across all years struggled with prioritizing their time or

dedicating enough time to study, with the reasons for this varying from underestimating the

amount of time needed to difficulties meeting conflicting responsibilities, whether or not

students felt these were within their control. Juggling multiple responsibilities takes students

away from their studies, increasing the risk of disengagement and therefore academic failure.

Curricular concerns such as a perceived lack of alignment, authenticity, and teacher support were

also factors reported for disengagement and academic failure. Difficulty in managing time and

prioritising study was the most commonly cited dispositional factor across all responses. This

corroborates findings that time management is difficult for first-year students (Brooker, Brooker,

& Lawrence, et.al, 2017).

Our study shows the emotional burden of academic failure also on students who persist.

The impact of academic failure on students is broader than issues of retention or withdrawal,

where attrition is considered to be problematic for students simply in terms of wasted time and

personal debt (TEQSA, 2017).

In accordance with Mansur, Yusof, Basori, et.al (2017) it was said that analysing student

behavior such as failure or success or even their study pattern is essential for further

improvement in E-learning system. This study observed the profile elements of student that

contribute to the failures rate of student. There are several factors which are affecting the student

behavior such as: relative bond, education schedule, nonattendance, school level of father and

mother, period of Voyage and etc. 

STUDENTS’ HEALTH
 “Academic Failure in Health Students of Semnan University of Medical Sciences”.

According to Pourmohammadi, Kami and Pordanjani, et.al (2022) educational failure entails

irreparable damage to the educational system, society, family and students, and resulting in

frustration, humiliation, incompetence, negative self-concept, and sometimes suicide. The

purpose of this study was to determine the frequency and factors affecting the academic failure

in Health Faculty Students of Semnan University of Medical Sciences.

Factors related to academic failure in preclinical medical education: A systematic review.

Identifying the learners’ problems early enough and providing advice from the beginning is

definitely an important investment in the training and progress of future practitioners. The

current review aimed at examining factors related to academic failure of the preclinical medical

students. (Ahmady, Khajeali, Sharifi, et.al, 2019).

Nieva, Joaquin, Tan, et.al, (2021), “Investigating Students’ Use of a Mental Health

Chatbot to Alleviate Academic Stress”. The amount of academic workload in schools can cause

students to experience stress and become more susceptible to mental health problems. However,

because of fear of societal stigma, students may find it more difficult to approach others about

the stress they experience. A chatbot can provide an alternative avenue for students to freely

share the stressful situations they are experiencing. In this study, we investigated the use of

Woebot as a mechanism to help senior high school students alleviate stress from academic

workload. 25 participants who engaged in daily conversations with Woebot for a two-week

period rated the chatbot’s likeness to a human with a mean score of 5.56 out of 8, while its ability

to understand the feelings of the participants and empathize with them had a mean score of 5.61.

An analysis of the chat logs showed that the participants valued Woebot’s lessons and stories

while they faced challenges in cases when the chatbot generated inappropriate responses. We
discuss our findings and provide design suggestions that could make conversational agents like

Woebot be more useful in helping the general student population cope with stress.

The Experience of English-Speaking Anxiety and Coping Strategies: A Transcendental

Phenomenological Study. The study investigates the speaking anxiety and strategies that second

language learners use to deal with their anxiety when they speak English. Transcendental

phenomenology was used as a method of the research. The results showed that learners have

emotional tensions, physiological symptoms, and mental difficulties when they speak English.

The fear of losing face or negative feedback was also attributed to the anxiety of the students.

The researcher also found that the students use some strategies to cope with their nervousness by

utilizing helpful tools such as reading books in English and consulting a dictionary. The

strategies enabled the students to put their thoughts into writing, overcome their shyness, and

become open-minded with the teacher’s corrections or feedback. (Pabro-Maquidato, 2021).

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FACTORS

The curriculum, training, and instruction are the core foundations of the learning process;

they influence one another and play vital roles to facilitate the flow of knowledge and delivery of

instructional content/curriculum. The physical environment/learning space refers to the physical

setting of the learner’s environment which should evoke positive responses and hold the interests

of those who inhabit it (Balog, 2018).

Productive learning environments are crucial to students' academic, emotional and social

success in school. A conducive learning environment doesn’t just happen on their own or by

chance. They should be created through conscious procedures like interacting with students in a
positive manner, exhibiting positive behaviors etc that would promote learning activities in the

learning environment (Becton, 2017).

STUDENTS SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS

Miftahu and Melaiye (2021) study indicated that parents’ occupation did not influence

their children’s academic achievement in secondary school, but their income affected their

students. The income of parents is needed to pay the necessary levy and fees needed for their

education.

The socioeconomic status of a family is determined by family income, parental

education, parental occupation, and social status in the community, which includes community

contacts, group affiliation, and the community’s perception of the family (Chen et al. 2018).

FACULTY’S PERSPECTIVE

Saban (2017), “Personal and Professional Qualities of Effective English Teachers in the

Philippines”. Teaching has been considered to be a noble profession because it has the possibility

of significantly affecting not only the intellectual but also the personal development of

individuals. Not only that an act of teaching is to be conducted but it must be carried out well to

achieve its purpose of creating good impact upon the learners. Factors identifying good teachers

may be relative but there are characteristics of good teaching that manifest total commitment in

the teacher. Undoubtedly, teachers’ beliefs and total personality affect the way they perform their

professional duties.

“Evaluating the effectiveness of educational data mining techniques for early prediction

of students' academic failure in introductory programming courses”. The data about high
students' failure rates in introductory programming courses have been alarming many educators,

raising a number of important questions regarding prediction aspects. In this paper, we present a

comparative study on the effectiveness of educational data mining techniques to early predict

students likely to fail in introductory programming courses. (Costa, Fonseca, Santana, et.al

2017).

Coloquit (2021), stated that this aims to identify and analyse perennial and current

problems that need to be improved in Philippine education. For many years, education is

believed to be the key to outsmart poverty and other economic issues (Butuyan, 2017). However,

for the decades, the country’s educational system remains challenged by perennial issues which

continue to escalate as the number of students increases each year that contributes to more

societal dilemmas. Despite all this, the nation’s educational system has been withstanding several

issues through initiating various interventions in accordance to its means of delivering quality

education, allocating manageable tasks for teachers, and bringing forth calibre benchmarks that

could lead the country out of the global academic ignominy. Thus, for the Philippines to attain its

academic and economic goals, further research should be conducted not only to realize the cause

of the issues but to contribute a better solution to each problem. 

In accordance with Mansur, Yusof, Basori, et.al (2017) it was said that analysing student

behavior such as failure or success or even their study pattern is essential for further

improvement in E-learning system. This study observed the profile elements of student that

contribute to the failures rate of student. There are several factors which are affecting the student

behavior such as: relative bond, education schedule, nonattendance, school level of father and

mother, period of Voyage and etc. 

 This article examines the phenomenon of failure in a Bachelor of Education practicum

from the perspectives of preservice teachers. Utilizing a phenomenological theoretical

framework and methodology, the perspectives of four preservice teachers are shared. The data

were drawn from practicum reports, field notes, interviews, and student teacher questionnaires.

Analysis of the findings reveals how insufficient content knowledge, inadequate planning, and

avoidance of difficult discussions lead to failure. (Danyluk, Burns, Crawford, et.al 2021).

Recent research found that part-time students, mature age students over 25 years, and

full-time students in paid work of 16 or more hours per week were less likely to feel that they

belong to their university community. Across all student groups, there was a rise in students

reporting that they kept to themselves at university. This perhaps highlights that a more nuanced

understanding of belonging or relatedness to the teachers or degree is required. (Baik et

al., 2019)