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Published: 06 November 2013

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Dr Kerry Hempenstall, Senior Industry Fellow, School of Education, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

 All my blogs can be viewed on-line or downloaded as a Word file or PDF at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/olxpifutwcgvg8j/AABU8YNr4ZxiXPXzvHrrirR8a?dl=0

New Addition – April 2025

The end of this above segment holds the original Failure to learn document

Why start another document?

I decided to take into account more recent literacy documents, and I’ve selected only research findings provided in the years 2020 to 2025.

The idea was to get some sense of how Failure to learn may have changed. The early document had numerous older documents and practitioners.

The original Failure to learn document is still available at the end of this document.

I decided to take into account more recent documents, and I’ve selected only new research provided in the years 2020 to 2025.

My idea was to get some sense of how the acceptance of Failure to learn may have changed since my early document was rather critical.

“What features in common do successful students have? Are there features in common among unsuccessful students? What are the various roles of intelligence, socioeconomic status, early childhood experiences, education systems, school organization, classroom practice, student motivation?

Perspectives vary, depending at least partly upon which feature is most strongly emphasized. For example, many argue that intelligence (the inherited component) is the major determinant of success (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994); whereas, others focus upon social class (Rothstein, 2004); early childhood experiences, especially language (Hart & Risley, 2003; Hirsch, 2013); a child’s motivation (Smith, 1992); character and perseverance (Tough, 2012;) the relationship with the teacher (Smith, 1992); or classroom instruction (Engelmann, 1980) as the crucial component.”

Hempenstall, K. (2012). Can people with an intellectual disability learn to read? Dec 13, 2012.

“Students inevitably experience failure in diverse contexts, both within and beyond the educational setting. As students have to learn how to cope with failure, cultivating resilience to failure is an important educational goal in the current society. This perspective paper undertakes a comprehensive review of studies centered around beliefs about academic failure, and highlights their importance in current educational settings, particularly in the context of social and emotional learning (SEL). After introducing the concept of failure beliefs within academic domains and providing an overview of prior research in this realm, we draw attention to the forthcoming horizons of research in failure belief studies. Future research is required (1) to position failure beliefs among various error-specific constructs in existing frameworks, (2) to understand how failure beliefs and other error-specific constructs relate to SEL, (3) to clarify the determinants of failure beliefs, (4) to examine the transfer and generalization of failure beliefs, and (5) to accumulate cross-cultural findings. Through these proposed directions, we underscore how failure beliefs stand to enrich SEL practices and policies.”

Daisuke Akamatsu, Claudia Gherghel. (2025). Failure beliefs in school and beyond: From the perspective of social and emotional learning. Social and Emotional Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy, Volume 5, 2025, 100095. ISSN 2773-2339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sel.2025.100095

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773233925000191

“The book was based on 800 meta-analyses (a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple studies) of 50,000 smaller studies. It found that, among six groups of factors influencing successful learning in schools – the teachers seemed to have the strongest in-school effect.    Visible Learning: The Sequel is published this month. It is informed by more than 2,100 meta-analyses about achievement drawn from more than 130,000 studies and conducted with the participation of more than 400 million students aged three to 25, mainly from developed countries student, home, school, teacher, curricula and teaching.

It confirms the finding that high impact is still the most important factor when it comes to student learning. This describes teachers who focus on the impacts of their teaching and who work together with other educators to critique their ideas about impact – about what was taught well, who was taught well and the size of the improvement.”

“My analysis shows a student’s achievement levels are affected negatively by many new factors. These include boredom, teacher-student dependency (where a student is over-reliant on their teacher) and corporal punishment.

I also identified a range of factors that improve students’ performance, including:

• computer tutoring that provides immediate feedback, particularly when using artificial intelligence
• “flipped learning”, whereby students are given the content to learn before coming to class
• teachers outlining and summarizing learning materials
• students being taught how to rehearse and memorise content
• “phonological awareness” – teaching students to recognise and manipulate parts of sentences and words when learning to read
• “cognitive task analysis,” which is about teaching students how to think about how to problem solve
• the “Jigsaw method,” which involves both individual and group learning to solve a problem.”

Sage: John Hattie on the Factors That Influence Learning In Schools. Social Science Space. The Conversation.

https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2023/03/john-hattie-on-the-factors-that-influence-learning-in-schools/

“Abstract: There are several reasons for student academic underperformance, such as academic, personal, and social factors students face when transitioning from high school to higher educational institutions. In this review paper, a systematic literature review is conducted based on the PRISMA strategy; the aim is to analyze the factors that lead to academic underperformance in students. Research from the past three decades, i.e., from 1990 to 2020, is analyzed. Data has been collected by searching two electronic databases, i.e., EBSCO and ScienceDirect. A total of 50 studies were identified after a careful filtration process for this review. The study reviews qualitative and quantitative papers conducted on different institutions, i.e., universities, colleges, and technical institutions. These studies revealed that many factors could impact students' performance; however, four main thematic categories were identified: academic, personal, social, and demographic.

The findings of this study will facilitate the use of social strategies and management techniques for students to improve their academic performance and lead to better academic outcomes. The researchers discussed the findings and identified some highlighted management techniques in the reviewed literature.”

“The factors that play a contributing role in the improvement of the academic performance of students or lead to their underperformance in an academic institution have been extensively studied, as they have been a focus for both educators and researchers alike (Awang et al., 2013; Azhar et al., 2014; Ganal & Guiab, 2014; Jayanthi et al., 2014; Alshammari et al., 2017; Faisal et al., 2017; Sharma et al., 2017; Le et al., 2020). The findings in these studies are a combination of social, student-oriented, teacher-oriented, institution-oriented, environmental, personal, psychological, and financial factors. However, other researchers have also linked the factors of age and gender to academic performance (Khan et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2019; Suppramaniam et al., 2019). As poor academic performance is a global issue, the current paper focuses on collecting data from a wide variety of research collected beyond any geographical bounds to examine the most prominent factors that lead to poor academic performance at the undergraduate level. This will be a valuable contribution to the existing literature on factors causing poor academic performance as it will collect literature from three decades, compare, and contrast various types of factors that have occurred to cause poor academic performance in the past years so that research can be carried out for eradication or control of these factors. Furthermore, the researcher has focused on undergraduate students as the higher education sector has a higher academic failure and dropout than education up until high school. Students' higher education is also vital for ensuring a sustainable professional future.”

“This study examined the academic literature for the past three decades and revealed the factors that led to undergraduate students' academic underperformance. Using the PRISMA strategy, four main categories were identified that are academic, personal, social, and demographic. This review has multiple theoretical and practical research implications. First and foremost, the current study increases awareness of factors impacting students' academic performance. Moreover, policymakers and university management personnel can also take suggestions from this review and improve the university-related factors that can lead to academic underperformance. Using this review, academics and scholars can gain valuable information regarding the factors of good performance and their impact on students. Moreover, this study implies that parents and other social players must improve their influence on students to reduce their academic underperformance.”

Rusol Adil Naji Al-Tameemi, Chithira Johnson, Rizwan Gitay, Abdel-Salam G. Abdel-Salam, Khalifa Al Hazaa, Ahmed BenSaid, Michael H. Romanowski (2023). Determinants of poor academic performance among undergraduate students—A systematic literature review, International Journal of Educational Research Open, Volume 4, 2023, 100232, ISSN 2666-3740. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedro.2023.100232

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666374023000079)

“Being an inefficient learner is one of the fears that most students have once they start their academic progress. However, for most students, this fear becomes comparatively manageable as they learn to build a skill set needed for adequate management of school tasks. Nonetheless, some students fail to gain relevant skills, which leads to them failing their exams and, eventually, having their literacy levels drop tremendously. Although academic failure can be caused by a range of adverse factors, some of which include poor socioeconomic background, language difficulties, and developmental health issues, a range of students tend to fail due to extreme levels of stress. The specified issue includes not only the inability to attend classes and meet the test deadlines properly but also a more general problem with arranging tasks on a time scale.

The connection between stress and the resulting academic failure of students is quite explicit. Specifically, being unable to cope with the emotional strain and manage their time properly, students fail to learn respective rules, principles, and theories, which translates to their mismanagement of tasks and tests, thus, leading to poor performance and eventual academic failure. However, a further look into the subject matter shows that there is more to the described issue than meets the eye (Oduwaiye et al., 2017). Another study shows that the presence of stress affects students in the higher education setting as well.”

Psychology  Writing . (2020). Stress as the Main Cause of Students’ Academic Failure .

https://psychologywriting.com/stress-as-the-main-cause-of-students-academic-failure/

“Numerous studies have generated substantial evidence that distracted learning has quite a detrimental effect on learning (e.g., Fernandes & Mosocovitch, 2000; Foerde, Knowlton, & Poldrack, 2006; Glass & Kang, 2019; Jamet et al., 2020; May & Elder, 2018; Neiterman & Zaza, 2019; Paul, 2013; Rosen, Carrier, & Cheever, 2013; Sana, Weston, & Cepeda, 2013). Collectively, these studies reveal a cascade of negative outcomes that occur as a result of students engaging in off-task multitasking.”

“Evidence from psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience suggests that when students multitask while doing schoolwork, their learning is far spottier and shallower than if the work had their full attention. They understand and remember less, and they have greater difficulty transferring their learning to new contexts. So detrimental is this practice that some researchers are proposing that a new prerequisite for academic and even professional success — the new marshmallow test2 of self-discipline — is the ability to resist a blinking inbox or a buzzing phone.” Paul (2013)

“The research indicates that media multitasking interferes with attention and working memory, negatively affecting GPA, test performance, recall, reading comprehension, note-taking, self-regulation, and efficiency. These effects have been demonstrated during in-class activities (largely lectures) and while students are studying. In addition, students struggle to accurately assess the impact media multitasking will have on their academic performance.” May and Elder (2018)”

“The other part of the problem, as articulated in this excerpt from May and Elder (2018), is that “students struggle to accurately assess the impact media multitasking will have on their academic performance.” If students do not believe their learning is being hampered by their multitasking behavior, then they have no motivation and no incentive to change it, and the problem just continues.”

Schmidt, S.J. (2020). Distracted learning: Big problem and golden opportunity. Journal of Food Science Education, Volume 19, Issue 4 p. 278-291.

https://doi.org/10.1111/1541-4329.12206

“Throughout the history, there has been great emphasis on the effective and efficient management of time, which has also been considered the key to success (Pugh & Nathwani, 2017; Nasrullah & Khan, 2015). Frederick Winslow Taylor gave the concept to use time management for analyzing time and motion studies of employees with aim to decrease time wasting and unproductive work (Savino, 2016). In this competitive era, for high performance, the organizations and directors emphasize on searching time management tools (Kumar & Aithal, 2019). It has also been advised to start practicing time management from the early student life (Valle et al., 2016). Time management has also been defined as a form of self-management with a clear emphasis on time in understanding what activities to do; how to do them more efficiently; in what time it should be done and when is the correct time to the particular activity (Savino, 2016). It has also been association with low anxiety and greater academic achievement in students (Jenaabadi, Nastiezaie, & Jalalzaei, 2016).

Whereas performing goal directed activities with the purpose of using time efficiently defines time management as “behavior” (Aeon & Aguinis, 2017). The time management behavior has three basic surfaces that are: time attitudes, long-range planning and short-range planning (Aeon & Aguinis, 2017). Time attitude is the positive or negative perspective towards the present, future and past time which had been directly linked to academic achievement, especially in scientific subjects (Nieuwoudt, & Brickhill, 2017). The concept of handling everyday jobs for longer period of time and keeping up with the objectives set for significant dates is called the competence in long range planning. Whereas, planning in the short run for the day to a day activity or planning for tasks within a day or week is short-range planning. For students to better manage their curriculum and achieve learning objectives, these time management behaviors or skills are argued to improve the positive academic output (Razali et al., 2018).”

Alyami, A. , Abdulwahed, A. , Azhar, A. , Binsaddik, A. and Bafaraj, S. (2021) Impact of Time-Management on the Student’s Academic Performance: A Cross-Sectional Study. Creative Education, 12, 471-485. doi: 10.4236/ce.2021.123033.

“Academic failure and school dropout, or early school leaving, are two of the situations that most concern countries and educational institutions worldwide, because of their prevalence and also their economic and social implications. Despite this prominent role that academic failure and school dropout have in societies, there seems to be no consensus on the literature on their conceptualization, definition, and relationship. Moreover, it is frequent to observe how both concepts are confused or overlap in the scientific literature and how many authors avoid defining these constructs, using them indistinctly. Therefore, this work analyses whether educational research considers them as two different concepts or if they are used indistinctly. For this purpose, 2,051 keywords from 450 articles were subjected to a systematic review and classified into the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) thesaurus´ descriptors. The results reveal statistically significant differences in the descriptors according to the type of paper to which they correspond (academic failure or dropout). Thus, academic failure is associated with sociocultural, personal, and academic factors, while dropout is linked to employment and educational trajectories. These differences evidence that, although academic failure and school dropout refer to closely related educational problems, there are remarkable differences between them and between the treatment given to each of them in the scientific literature. Therefore, they should be considered as two different concepts. For all this, keyword analysis has proved to be a relevant element for the study of the structure of knowledge, allowing to clearly establish the differences between the two closely related concepts.”

Gutiérrez-de-Rozas, B., Molina, E. C., & López-Martín, E. (2022). Academic failure and dropout: Untangling two realities. European Journal of Educational Research, 11(4), 2275-2289. https://doi.org/10.12973/eu-jer.11.4.2275

AI Overview

“In education, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process of developing and applying the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to understand and manage emotions, set goals, show empathy, and build positive relationships, ultimately contributing to students' academic and personal success”.

“Students may struggle to learn due to a combination of personal, situational, and systemic factors, including learning difficulties, lack of motivation, poor study habits, and inadequate teaching methods, leading to consequences like lower grades, reduced self-esteem, and potential long-term academic difficulties.”

“This article analyzes the use of the term “lazy” in the educational setting, how this term affects students, and the pedagogical approaches educators can take within their subject areas to reduce stress for their students. Pedagogical decisions affect student stress, and this article provides suggestions to prevent student burnout in order to improve curricula offerings in secondary and higher-level classrooms.

Results show that students often reduced to “lazy” are most likely struggling with an underlying cause for their lack of performance, such as stress, burnout, depression, anxiety-induced procrastination, unknown and undiagnosed mental challenges, and misguided apathy.

Results concluded that to reduce student stress and increase intrinsic motivation, educators should avoid shaming students, provide rationale for learning, express interest in students, teach with enthusiasm, and contribute to building a positive learning environment.”

Jenkins, W. (2023). Laziness and How It Affects Our Students. ATU Research Symposium. 4. https://orc.library.atu.edu/atu_rs/2023/2023/4

“Many problems can affect the academic performance of the students. One of these is tardiness. It can widely affect the academic performance of the students because of missed classes or instructional hours of learning. It may cause failed accomplishments in homework, written exams, and projects. It may become a habit of some students that may lead them to more serious problems like the poor learning process. … The data were analyzed using statistical method specifically the frequency distribution, mean and or percentage. The results of the study revealed that tardiness affects the academic performance of the FCIC 1st year college student especially with their grades. The results revealed that distance between residence to school are the most common factor of tardiness. This study adds body of knowledge and benefits of the educators, instructors, and students on the problem of tardiness of students for their teaching and learning.”

Serut, J., Rojas, R. Jr., Colvera, I., Majestrado, M.J., Alea, I. & Lim, J. (2023). The Effects of Tardiness to the Academic Performance of the FCIC First-Year College Students Enrolled in A.Y. 2022-2023. Franciscan College of the Immaculate Conception Insights. 1-16. Vol. 01 | Issue 01 | P-ISSN : 1656-6483

“It is highly significant to note that a human being’s entire existence is commonly based on the amount of knowledge he or she acquires, how much this knowledge is utilized in developing himself, his country, and the world at large. This explains the reason underlying the need for education.

The basic thing that one gets from education is knowledge. One gets to know about various things ranging from Mathematics to History, Literature to Political Science [1] . The worldly knowledge we gain from education plays a great role in our future life and helps us to understand the happenings in a much more cohesive manner. Meanwhile, educational success is a measure based on the academic performance of students.

Educators and researchers have long been interested in exploring variables contributing to the quality of academic performance of learners. Academic performance is affected by many factors including parents’ education levels and income, teachers’ knowledge of the subject, truancy, textbooks availability and accessibility, libraries, practical laboratory, meals provision and many other factors [2] .

The home environment has been recognized as having a lot of influence on academic performance. Children who experience poverty may live in physical environments that offer less stimulation and fewer resources for learning. Education at the secondary school level is supposed to be the bedrock and the foundation towards higher knowledge in tertiary institutions [3] . Consistent lower academic performance at the Senior High School is a threat to every country’s educational system, especially Ghana.

There is therefore the need to review the literature on academic performance, and insight into factors and their influences on academic outcomes of students at Senior High Schools. This is one way or the other could help expose some gaps in the literature and other issues that have been favoured by research and publications. This study has been structured to review literature on factors and their influences on academic outcomes of students at senior high schools.”

Brew, E.A., Nketiah, B. and Koranteng, R. (2021) A Literature Review of Academic Performance, an Insight into Factors and their Influences on Academic Outcomes of Students at Senior High Schools. Open Access Library Journal, 8, 1-14. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1107423

Wow, lots of issues on what can cause Failure to Learn

This next segment is the original, broader document and includes earlier periods.

All societies value learning. It is a major determinant of a society's survival. Although the emphasis placed upon it may vary across a community, most parents and governments acknowledge the responsibility of ensuring that the following generation is equipped to deal with the challenges that living in a community entails. Hence, we have schools to assist parents in that role.

 So, where should we look when children fail to learn? School learning is a primarily cognitive activity which requires adequate capacity and intention on the part of the learner, and an environment enabling successful interactions to occur. Thus, there are numerous possibilities to account for failure to learn. Determination of cause can be considered from at least two perspectives.

The first approach is to ascertain who the various players (particularly policy makers, parents, and teachers) believe has the major responsibility for children’s learning. The degree to which parents hand responsibility to an education system for qualities such as life skills is always vexed. However, it is generally accepted that schools have the major role in ensuring success in the formal areas of education; in particular, literacy and numeracy.

Another approach is to determine, as precisely as possible, what factors generally produce success in children’s school learning career. While, survey information is based largely upon opinion, the second is best addressed through the accumulation of data. However, the influences on success are likely to be many, entangled, and interacting. What features in common do successful students have? Are there features in common among unsuccessful students? What are the various roles of intelligence, socioeconomic status, early childhood experiences, education systems, school organization, classroom practice, student motivation?

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