An exploratory PLS study of academic success/failure

Strategies to combat academic failure in higher education rely on the identification and the knowledge of the causes associated with it. In order to identify these causes, a questionnaire survey was implemented in one public Higher School of Technologies and Engineering in Portugal. Student-related aspects were those that exhibited the highest impact on academic success/failure. Teachers and institution/curriculum exhibited an indirect impact through mediation by student-related aspects. Other variables were identified with a negative residual impact on academic success, such as: being displaced from the habitual residence, disliking to study, and being a male. With a slightly more substantive impact, emerged the sleep time on the eve of the tests.