Excellence in higher education: Students' personal qualities and the effects of undergraduate honours programmes

Although excellence in higher education has received increased attention over the last decade worldwide and in The Netherlands, expanding the empirical knowledge base for developing and maintaining excellence is still needed. This thesis contributes to this knowledge base by examining (a) the role of students’ personal qualities with regard to excellence in higher education, and (b) the effects of educational programmes designed for students who are already doing well and are motivated to learn (so called honours programmes). Thereby, this thesis may help to determine how to optimally support students with different personal qualities across their study career, how to identify potential honours students, and how to increase the effectiveness of honours programmes.
Personal qualities included in this thesis are variables pertaining to motivation (i.e., master and performance orientations, perseverance, and self-efficacy), creativity (i.e., innovativeness), and intellectual ability (i.e., academic aptitude in terms of high-school grades and self-perceived intelligence). Using a web-based questionnaire, data on personal qualities were collected among 11392 undergraduate students from 17 different study programmes comprising all faculties at Utrecht University and a University College at the beginning of five consecutive semesters. Data were complimented with students’ academic achievement (GPA) and high school exam scores. Additionally, using an online questionnaire, 144 alumni (both former honours and non-honours students) from pharmaceutical sciences, veterinary sciences, and human geography were asked about their work engagement and other characteristics in their current jobs.
Findings in this thesis showed that personal qualities like mastery orientation, and especially performance orientation and perseverance were important for academic achievement. Surprisingly, students’ level of innovativeness was not relevant for their academic achievement. Moreover, personal qualities did not have the same effect on academic achievement for all students alike. For example, enhanced levels of perseverance during the undergraduate programme resulted in a much greater gain in GPA for students who performed well at high school compared to students with a lower performance level.
Results regarding the effectiveness of honours programmes showed that former honours students could be distinguished from their non-honours peers after graduation during the first years of their professional career. On average, honours alumni had a higher final study GPA and higher work engagement. These outcomes suggest that it is unlikely that honours programme participation leads to a decline in study GPA, as is sometimes feared since honours programmes represent an additional workload beyond the regular study programme. When undergraduate honours students were compared with students who did not participate, controlling for eight pre-enrolment qualities of the students, no differences between honours and (matched) non-honours were found, except for slight changes in innovativeness and mastery orientation during the program. So, it may be that differences found in earlier research are the result of (self-) selection processes instead of developmental differences due to honours programme participation.