Monitoring student factors and study progress: effects on institutional and counseling level. Paper presented at the 4th Annual European First Year Conference, May 13-15 2009, Groningen, Netherlands.

Finding the factors that influence study-progress of students is an essential theme for researchers, practitioners and policymakers in higher educational institutes. Recent years also subsidizing governments are getting more and more interested. They have to account to 'society' for the investment in talent of young people. The knowledge how studying in higher education could be more efficient and effective is interesting for all actors. Last but not least the students themselves would benefit from knowing these factors. In Flanders, government changed the (financing) system of higher education under incentive of the Bologna-process. One of the consequences is that Institutes and students will be penalized if student-progress isn't efficient. This is a trend seen all over Europe.

An extensive literature review is done. A multifactor-model of study-progress is developed with the following factors:
1. student factors like intake-factors of the students (sex, hours of math, grades pre-HE, etc.)
2. transition-factors (certainty of choice, moment of decision, etc.)
3. socio-familial factors (commuting, degree parents, language at home)
4. extracurricular factors (sport, work during year or holidays)
5. study-factors (number of taken and passed credits (at different moments), ratio taken/passed credits)
Based upon this model a questionnaire is developed. 685 first-year students of 8 different faculties were questioned. Chi² and MANOVA analyses are used to find significant factors influencing study-progress.

A long tradition in study- and student-counseling exists at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. There's a lot of practical expertise in how and why students fail or succeed. We offer individual counseling, workshops on study-skills or study-choice in transition, training on fear-of-failure and test-anxiety, specific guidance for students with dyslexia, autism or psychiatric problems. We've published a practical guide 'Studywise' with all skills needed for students to be successful. Since 2007 first year students are monitored on the 5 different factors. The purpose of this student-monitoring is trying to get a profile of what a successful student is. This study is directly aimed at practical and policy change.

We'll discuss the results and their impact on different levels (theoretical, practical and policy-level). The theoretical model, the counseling-services and the inscription-policy will be improved based on the results of the monitoring study.