How do the factors contributing....
How do the factors contributing....
Factors have two dimensions: internal/external
and stable/unstable. It was first proposed by
Weiner in his 1974 work. His general framework
is surmised in table 1.
•
The internal and stable factor is the abil-
ity and it is the result of good genes.
•
The internal and unstable factor is the ef-
fort and interest that an individual is willing to
invest. This is affected by many social, environ-
mental, cultural and economic factors.
•
The external stable factor is the task diffi-
culty.
•
The external unstable factor is luck and
opportunity and this again is affected by eco-
nomic, social and cultural factors.
Internal
External
Stable Ability Task Difficulty
Unstable Effort Luck
Table 1: 2 X 2 matrix depicting the two dimen-
sions of factors
When you add controllability into this equation
you get a new matrix as shown in Table 2 below,
which shows that any factor can be classified
into the following dimensions.
How do the factors contributing to academic
success differ in American High Schools across the globe?
Internal
Stable
Unstable
Controllable
Uncontrollable
Controllable
Uncontrollable
External
Uncontrollable
Uncontrollable
Table 2: The three dimensions of factors.
Author: Krithika Thiruppathi
Academic success has become one of the important criterion for a thriving career. I am not talk-
ing about geniuses born with a natural aptitude for success with or without academic backing. I
am talking about the other 98% of the world who have to cram for exams to earn the academic
validation that will give them an opportunity to have a fighting chance in a career. Studies have
shown that there are a lot of factors contributing to an individual’s academic success such as fam-
ily factors, social factors, economic factors, cultural factors, institutional factors, peer factors and
personal factors. This article focuses on attempting to explain some of the differences in these
factors, specific to the American High Schools, across the globe and their impact on the academic
success of the students.
All external factors are uncontrollable while
the internal factors can be either controllable
or uncontrollable. An example as given in the
article titled ‘Academic Success Factors: An IT
Student Perspective’ in the journal of Informa-
tion Technology Education is the simple case of
the basketball player. The height of the basket-
ball player is considered uncontrollable internal
factor while the skill of the player is considered
controllable through training.
There have been many studies to investigate
24
SPRING 2017
various factors that affect academic success. A
comprehensive list can be found in the afore-
mentioned journal article. One factor that is
starkly obvious is the curriculum. There is not
much change to the core curriculum but there
are minor changes that opens a child’s mind. For
example in the Middle East, Arabic lessons are
compulsory for students. Hence, on top of the
US curriculum, student learn Arabic as Foreign
Language. This is on top of French and Span-
ish that they learn as World Languages. ACTFL
(American Council on The Teaching of Foreign
Languages) has listed many studies that shows
language learning supports academic achieve-
ment, provide cognitive benefits to students
and affects the attitude and beliefs of the other
culture.
To surmise, the studies show that
•
In standard test measures, people who
are multilingual score higher.
•
Multilingual students have higher linguis-
tic awareness.
•
Students who study more languages
score higher in SAT and ACT tests.
•
There is a correlation between High
school foreign language study and academic
performance at college level.
•
Early language learning improves cogni-
tive abilities.
•
Bilingualism sets off age related cognitive
losses.
•
Bilingualism improves problem solving,
memory skills and intelligence.
Hence,
it
can
be
seen that
this pro-
foundly
affects
the stu-
d e n t s
studying in
a Middle
East Amer-
i c a n
school
on a dif-
ferent level than the
students in USA.
SPRING 2017 25