Researchers from the Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center of the University of Granada (UGR) and Loyola Andalucía University have analyzed the role of cognitive and non-cognitive skills in the academic success of university students.
The results confirm a fundamental idea: cognitive skills are not the only ones that influence academic performance. This data converges with the ideas proposed in the Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) paradigm, and opens the door to educational policies focused on enhancing competencies to optimize student performance.
The conclusions of this work are based on the systematic analysis of 42 empirical studies focused on analyzing the influence of academic competencies, of different nature, on the academic performance of new university students.
The synthesis of the information provided by the studies made it possible to extract 18 key competencies in university academic performance, which can be grouped into the following categories:
- Cognitive skills: verbal reasoning, writing skills, logical reasoning and numerical reasoning.
- Self-regulation skills: collaboration, critical thinking, effort regulation, leadership, study and time management, and self-directed learning.
- Personality factors and traits: conscientiousness, extraversion, determination, procrastination, and professionalism.
- Motivational and attitudinal factors: internal locus of control and self-efficacy.
- Psychosocial and contextual variables: social responsibility.
This list points to several fundamental ideas for the educational context. On the one hand, it reflects that university education should not focus solely on the development of cognitive skills. On the other hand, it highlights the relevance of self-regulation skills, which play a fundamental role in predicting academic performance. This means that we should not only look at, for example, our reasoning ability, but also at how we manage it, how we direct it, or how we regulate effort when we use this ability to develop academic tasks.
The evidence provided by this study promotes the planning of more comprehensive training routes in the university context, which favor the integral development of students. In addition, it provides keys to enhance the performance of students with diverse characteristics and opens a line of work focused on identifying the conditions that favor students to make the most of their time at university.
Reference:
Luesia, J. F., Benítez, I., Company-Córdoba, R., Gómez-Gómez, I., & Sánchez-Martín, M. (2023b). Assessing the relevance of academic competencies in college admission tests from a higher-order thinking perspective: A systematic review. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 48, 101251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2023.101251
Contact:
Isabel Benítez (@email)
Milagrosa Sánchez-Martín (@email)
Juan F. Luesia (@email)