Changes in predictors of school performance in secondary school

The aim of this paper is to identify the functions that best predict school achievement among adolescents and whether they change or remain stable as pupils grow older. For this purpose, we used a sample of 1392 pupils of both sexes, belonging to second and fourth grades of Secondary School of Galicia (Spain). The students were assessed with a battery of instruments that provided data about a range of variables such as family system, personal characteristics, social relationships, goal orientation, attributional variables, attitudes towards evaluation and studies, as well as learning processes and strategies. Sixty-eight potentially predictive variables were obtained and they were subsequently related to "high", "intermediate" and "low" levels of school achievement by means of discriminant analysis. Results showed that school achievement can be discriminated by two functions, which include 12 variables in second grade, dropping to 8 in fourth grade. Of these, only five are common to both years. The results of this research project support the idea that the functions that best predict school achievement vary throughout Secondary Education.