Factors affecting study performance of engineering undergraduates : : case studies of Malaysia and Australia

While student attrition is of concern to engineering educators there is still a lack of understanding of factors that can contribute to students’ success in engineering. The main purpose of this research has been to quantitatively examine the relationships between learning strategy, interest, intention and academic performance informed by the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). Participants were 135 Malaysian and 132 Australian engineering undergraduates who completed the Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) scale and Learner Autonomy Profile (LAP-SF) scale. The correlation coefficient analysis shows strong interrelationships between learning strategy, interest and intention while findings of the structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis revealed unexpected but interesting findings across the two countries. Two different models were established for the Malaysian and Australian data suggesting that intention is influenced by strategy only via the establishment of interest. This is consistent with the theory used.