Exploring the relationship between students' orientations to learning, the structure of students' learning outcomes and subsequent academic performance

This paper discusses a study of 966 undergraduate Accounting students enrolled in a large Australian Business School, to investigate the relationship between two factors obtained on entry to higher education and students' subsequent academic performance (where academic performance is measured by aggregate final grades). The two factors explored are: students' orientations to learning on entry to university, as measured by a modified version of the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) (Biggs 1987c); and the structure of students' learning outcomes as measured by scoring students' responses on a comprehension task completed on entry to university using the Biggs and Collis' SOLO taxonomy (1982). Findings indicate that 25% of the students entering higher education exhibited the 'relational' and 'extended abstract' SOLO levels in the comprehension task administered. Furthermore, SOLO scores were significantly positively correlated with academic grades, and there was a significant negative relationship between students' SPQ surface scores and academic grades. The findings provide insights into trends relating to students 'at risk', and suggest that students entering higher education demonstrating lower SOLO scores are at a higher risk of failure than those entering at the higher SOLO scores. The findings serve to signal areas for attention in relation to facilitating student learning. The paper considers the implications of these findings for teaching and learning in business and accounting education.