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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 3. 1966.

No blueprint

No blueprint

There is no one blueprint of past experience or present virtue that guarantees a student academic success: the same is true for failure. A whole host of factors interact to determine success or failure at the university.

But let us suppose that an actuary was attempting to make predictions as to the success of different groups of students in their academic work. He would want to isolate those factors which are most often linked with failure (or success); he might even go further and inquire into the best ways of ensuring that students who look like failing in fact do not so fail.

Let us examine some of the conclusions on which there is a fair degree of agreement.

Many people in answer to the question "Why do students fail at the university?" would probably reply that it is a combination of inadequate preparation in the secondary schools, unsatisfactory persistence on the part of the individual student—they might add, almost as an after-thought, that inadequate teaching at the university also exercised an effect.