Factors of academic success
...nized by headmasters of some English grammar schools shows that, ‘poorness in study ability’ makes up 17 percent out of all possible reasons, and other factors occupies less than it (Miller 1970). Explicit goals and motivation are absolutely necessary for students who want to reach the acme of studying. Indeed, goals establish a series of guidelines to these students; as a result, it helps them to contribute much more efforts and zeal into their school work with little distractions. Motivation, which is regarded as psychological reason to stimulate individuals to finish the work successfully, would more or less affect the ending of final performance. An educational theory called ‘The original cognitive theory of achievement motivation’, which relate goals and motivation with outcome of learning, pointed out that the motivation of setting goals is to avoid failure and to satisfy the success in education period (Atkinson & Feather, 1966). Perhaps some students erect their goals for their great idealities, some others, would likely for purpose of brighter prosperity of their future career or for other causes. All in all, in a motivational opinion, a distinct goal can be seen as a mental prompting for sparking students’ potential power. How about study habits? Someone can hardly deny that study habits play a significant vital role in determining a student’s academic results. To be frank, students cannot achieve at any required level and become qualified to graduation without knowing how to adapt themselves with good relevant study habits. A famous quotation from Edison, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% transpiration" had somewhat emphasize that proper and wise study habit are great determinant of one’s academic success. Indeed, good study habits not only mean good study skills, hard working, but also refer to reasonable time management, enough preparation, right study attitude, responsibility for oneself, persistence, self-discipline, dedication, and etc. Possession of those habits helps students to conquer the obstacles on their way to academic success. A research shows that a person who uses the skill of activating the intention to remember will get about twenty percent to sixty percent more information than those who counted merely on reading and listening (Walter 1974). On the contrary, the bad habits, such as lacking of a study schedule, never attempting again, often being distracted with other things, leaving tasks unfinished, are all the barriers to receive the gifts from success. In despite of our acknowledgement that everyone can obtain academic success by working hard, different backgrounds and home life bring various influences to educational outcome. Background ingredients of students imply family backgrounds, education levels, body health, g...