Representation of Psychological, Functional, and Behavioral Signs of Academic Failure of Undergraduate Students in University of Tehran

Abstract

Academic failure is the root of many psychological and emotional disturbances in students. In spite of its importance, there has not been enough studies to represent the academic failure indicators with an exploratory approach in Iran. This study is to identify the signs of academic failure in undergraduate students by using a meaningful understanding of the perception and experience of a group of professors and students of University of Tehran. For this purpose, we selected the research participants from the professors and students of the faculties of Electrical and computer Engineering, Foreign Languages, Management, Science and Fine Arts, using criterion sampling. In the professors' group after the 19th interview and in the students' group after the 10th interview, theoretical saturation of the data was obtained, but for more confidence in the findings, we continued the interviews in the professors' group up to 28 subjects and in the students group up to 20. Data were collected using semi-structured interviewing technique and analyzed using the MAXQDA software based on Colaizzi's method. In order to increase the credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability, peer debriefing, negative case analysis, triangulation, explaining the exact details of the data collection and analysis process, and long-term immersion were utilized. The results revealed 3 themes: Functional, behavioral, and psychological subcategories, 8 sub-themes, and 26 symptoms. Findings showed that students with academic failure experience worse functional, behavioral and psychological symptoms of it and face numerous challenges and problems.

Keywords

• teacher’s perception
• academic failure
• academic failure signs
• academic performance