Over the years, higher education researchers have examined the factors that influence or enhance academic achievement and factors that prevent students from dropout. In the early days the emphasis was on effects from student variables such as ability and socio-economic status. More recently -influenced by school effectiveness research- variables related to the educational system and related to the manner in which institutions organise their education have been included in the analyses. This

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... r examines these three complexes of factors and focuses on the problem "what influences academic achievement of first-year students at the University of Groningen?"