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The literature on students’ academic performance can be traced back to the psychology of individual differences, when Binet and Simon (1916) proved that children’s

individual cognitive capacities could explain differences in educational performance. The last century has seen a wealth of research accounting for variation in academic achievement. The first half of the twentieth century focused on intelligence (e.g. Spearman, 1927). Following the publication of Piaget’s (1959) Constructivist theory of learning, researchers began to consider the role of learning style and academic

achievement. Richardson, Abraham, and Bond (2012) provide a succinct publication which reviews thirteen years of research into antecedents of university students’

academic performance. Reviewing 7,167 papers from 241 datasets, they identified five conceptually overlapping but distinct research domains: (i) personality traits, (ii)

motivational factors, (iii) self-regulatory learning strategies, (iv) students’ approaches to learning, and (v) psychosocial contextual influences. The overall strongest correlate for academic performance was observed for performance self-efficacy, which falls into motivational factors. The authors distinguished performance self-efficacy from academic self-efficacy by the extent of student experience with similar challenges. Performance self-efficacy relates to students who are able to draw on familiar

predicted on the basis of generalised representations of relevant competencies, it is referred to as academic self-efficacy (Zimmerman, Bandura, & Martinez-Pons, 1992).

There is an extensive literature on self-efficacy and academic performance and the relationship between performance self-efficacy and academic achievement is well recognised. However, the link between academic self-efficacy and achievement is less established. Chemers, Hu, and Garcia (2001) found academic self-efficacy and

optimism were related to academic achievement in high school children. More relevant to this research project, Young, Sercombe, Sachdev, Naeb, and Schartner (2013) found strong relationships between academic grades, psychological well-being, satisfaction with life in their new environment, intercultural competence, language proficiency, and the degree, quality and patterns of social contact in their sample of 108 non-UK post- graduate students studying at a UK university.

With reference to student approaches to learning and achievement, Richardson et al. (2012) found the relationship between surface learning and academic performance was weak and negative, while deep and strategic approaches to learning were found to be positively associated with academic performance, albeit with weak correlations. Entwistle (2000) states that academic performance typically shows strong relationships between poor academic performance and a surface approach to learning, combined with a non-strategic lack of regulation. A deep approach is associated with good academic performance, and where the assessment requires a deep level of understanding, a strategic approach shows the strongest correlation with academic performance (Entwistle, 2000). Using the ASSIST, Cassidy and Eachus (2000) found academic achievement was positively correlated with a strategic approach, negatively correlated with a surface approach, and not related to a deep approach to learning. Cassidy (2004), in his overview of theories, models and measures, states that “the effects of [learning] style on performance are contingent on the nature of the task” (p. 438), suggesting that they are not generalisable.

Such relationships between deep learning and positive academic outcomes led to experimental attempts to induce deep learning (Entwistle, 1997; Marton & Säljö, 1984; Ramsden, Beswick, & Bowden, 1987). Much of this research, however, highlighted inconsistencies in policy and practice in UK universities. Teaching policies tend to promote ‘deep understanding’, whereas assessment practices often measure surface

learning, where memorisation and reproducing information was rewarded (Norton & Crowley, 1995). This, perhaps, explains why a number of studies have found an increase in a surface approach in the first year of university (Richardson, 2000). The relationship between conceptions of learning and academic achievement has received less attention in the literature than one would expect, possibly due to the commonly held assumption that students’ conceptions of learning are positively related to their learning outcomes. Students who view learning as an interpretative process aimed at understanding reality will ‘change as a person’ and perform better than students who view learning as increasing their knowledge. Van Rossum and Schenk (1984), Purdie et al. (1996) and Alamdarloo, Moradi & Dehshiri (2013) have claimed that there is a relationship between students’ conceptions of learning and their learning outcomes. However, the evidence to support this claim is weak. Other papers (e.g. Martin & Ramsden, 1987; Norton & Crowley, 1995) have been cited as providing such evidence, but these studies tend to involve interventions that focused on improving students’ use of learning strategies, and do not provide information about the

relationship between conceptions of learning and learning outcomes in regular courses of study. In their cross-cultural study of conceptions of learning, Purdie and Hattie (2002) found that the self-rated academic achievement of students who endorsed all of their six conceptions of learning was higher than students who only endorsed the first few conceptions of learning. However, they did not indicate at what point of the course their students self-rated their academic achievement.

The importance of self-regulated learning and academic achievement is well established in the literature (Bandura & Schunk, 1981; Spates & Kanfer, 1977; Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1986, 1990). Self-regulated learning focuses on how and why students control their own learning, that is to say, strategies students use as they engage with learning tasks rather than their ability or knowledge. Fuller (1999) found that the learning context had more influence on academic performance than conceptions of learning; he also argued that, as conceptions of learning are such complex constructs, categorising students into a single conception is fundamentally flawed.

Rienties, Beausaert, Grohnert, Niemantsverdriet, and Kommers (2012) explored differences in academic performance between home and international students through focussing on students’ levels of academic and social integration. Their findings indicate

that the degree of students’ academic success is highly complex. Academic adjustment was the main predictor of study-performance for Dutch, Western and Mixed-Western students, however this does not predict long term success as academic and social integration processes are not linear. Also exploring international student adjustment, Young, Sercombe, Sachdev, Naeb, and Schartner (2013) found strong relationships between academic grades, psychological well-being, satisfaction with life in their new environment, intercultural competence, language proficiency, and the degree, quality and patterns of social contact among 108 international post-graduate students at a UK university.

Exploring factors which influence students’ academic achievement is highly

problematic, as there is a lack of consistency in the literature as to how achievement and/or performance is measured. Several researchers use self-report measures but rarely define how these are collated. Students’ understanding and experiences of learning influencing their performance is a plausible theory, however, the evidence is weak, as the relationship between learning conceptions, the learning context and learning approaches has not been confirmed.