Conference Agenda

Every year, approximately 35% of Slovenian high school graduates who complete academically the most demanding upper secondary education take the General Matura (GM) examinations in Slovenia. The GM is comprised of five subject exams: Slovene language, Mathematics, First foreign language, and two subjects chosen by the student from a selection of over 30 subjects. The GM score in Slovenia is calculated as the sum of grades received in the five subject exams. The score can range from 10 (2+2+2+2+2), the lowest passing grade, to 34 (8+8+8+5+5), the highest possible score. Success on the GM is considered equivalent to completing upper secondary education, and in cases where university study programs have a limited number of applicants, GM scores are used as a selection criteria in the admissions process.

The use of GM scores for university admissions has been studied multiple times (Bucik, 2001; Cankar, 2000; Sočan, Krebl, Špeh & Kutin, 2016) with findings similar to research on external examinations in other countries (Kuncel, Hezlett, & Ones; 2001). However, there is a lack of research on the associations between GM scores (achieved at the age of 19) and various measures of personal success later in life and professional careers at ages 33-40 in national and international literature. In public discussions, you can often hear assertions that students’ school achievements and results on external exams have no relevance for later success on a labour market, income in their professional career, or other measures of success. Despite being a high-stakes examination, GM has not been systematically examined to determine its role and long-term value in the Slovenian educational system.

Our research aims to explore the predictive value of GM scores on socio-economic status (SES) and specifically on yearly income later in life for several cohorts of students. Our null hypothesis is that GM scores do not predict SES or yearly income of students in their professional careers.

While it is commonly assumed that success on the GM examinations at the end of upper secondary education is associated with success at university and to some extent later in professional careers, such claims are difficult to verify scientifically due to a lack of representative and valid data. This research aims to provide a deeper understanding of the associations between GM scores, socio-economic measures and personal success in professional careers.

In research on educational equity, students from socioeconomically disadvantaged homes are typically depicted as low-performers and more likely to fail in school (Sirin, 2005). There are, however, students who, despite their disadvantaged backgrounds, manage to succeed in school. This capacity to overcome adversities in education and still reach successful achievements is referred to as Academic Resilience (Agasisti et al., 2018). Academic Resilience is built upon two critical conditions, namely, exposure to significant threats or severe adversity and achievement of positive adaptation despite major assaults on the developmental process (Kiswarday, 2012). Resilience is often captured by identifying protective and risk factors that predict the likelihood of achieving resilient outcomes. Risk factors are characteristics which heighten the risk of adverse outcomes, while protective factors are characteristics that function as a buffer against negative impacts and are associated with positive adaptation and outcomes (Masten, 2014). Resilient students are often characterized by high self-confidence, perseverance, willingness and capacity to plan, and lower anxiety (Martin & Marsh, 2006, 2009; OECD, 2011), strong engagement in class and academic activities (Borman & Overman, 2004). Thorsen et. al., (2021) also found that resilient students display both more perseverance and consistency of interest over time. Hence, both cognitive and non-cognitive skills are important for academic resilience.

Research on the economics of human development also highlight the value of skill formation for success in adulthood, particularly for disadvantaged children. Societal investments in strengthening both cognitive and non-cognitive skills for disadvantaged children give significant economic returns both at individual and societal levels (e.g. Heckman, 2006). More recent studies have particularly highlighted non-cognitive skill formation as an crucial enabler. Non-cognitive skills are associated with promoting both economic and social mobility, economic productivity and well-being in adulthood (e.g. Kautz et al., 2015; Soto, 2019). A wealth of studies on the labour market aligns with this reasoning, identifying positive associations with both cognitive and non-cognitive skills and labour market outcomes. Johannesson (2017) found that cognitive abilities and non-cognitive skills (academic self-concept and perseverance) predicted the risk of being unemployed via school grades. Further, personality, i.e. extraversion and conscientiousness, was demonstrated to lead to higher earnings (Fletcher, 2013). Edin et. al., (2022) found that one standard-deviation increase in cognitive skills is associated with a salary increase of 6.6 percent and an increase in non-cognitive skills is associated with a 7,9 percent salary increase after controlling for educational attainment.

Studies on academic resilience and skill formation are scarcer. Nevertheless, some studies have found that protective factors identified during childhood and youth such as self-control and ability to plan are predictive of a more successful transition into adulthood (see Burt & Paysnick, 2012 for a review). In a qualitative study following up on four resilient students a decade later Morales (2008) found that the students continued to perform at high educational levels. The participants adapted the protective factors identified at the start of the study (i.e. self-confidence and internal locus of control) and used them to meet new challenges.

Employing a resilience perspective, the present study aims to investigate the difference in salary development among individuals who have been identified as being academically resilient versus those who are not. We also want to explore if the salary development can be attributed to educational attainment (educational history) and work status as changing conditions, and cognitive and non-cognitive skills, such as, cognitive ability, perseverance and academic self-concept as time invariant prerequisites.

Research studies on degree completion on due time are seldom in the higher education literature. Regarding the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), no study has been published so far addressing the topic of degree completion on due time (Yes/No) based on nationwide representative data. By considering an entire entrant cohort of first-time, full-time undergraduate students who attended their three-year program at the same institution, and that simultaneously considers students’ background, entrance scores and choices, eligibility for social scholarship, institutional organization characteristics and the area of study, this study explores the role of social scholarships/financial aid in overcoming the effects of students’ socioeconomic disadvantages. A previous study (Ferrão, 2023) analyzed the relationship of the aforementioned students’ characteristics on degree completion grade point average (GPA). Findings suggest that receiving (or not receiving) a social scholarship has no influence on students’ GPA, confirming recent institution research findings obtained with the Universidade of Minho data (Ferrão et al., 2021) for the 1^st year GPA rating. Nevertheless, Ferrão et al. (2020) found a statistically significant fixed effect of scholarship on students’ persistence, at the level of significance of 10%. In addition, institutional research conducted at the Instituto Politécnico de Leiria points out that providing solutions for financial limitations may contribute to decrease the risk of dropping out. In fact, Carreira and Lopes (2021) report that the “main motives for dropping out referred were ‘financial difficulties’ (27% of the students) and ‘work-school incompatibility’ (20%), while ‘low academic performance’ (11%), ‘health reasons’ (8%) or migration (2%), for example, were less mentioned, confirming the importance of financial assistance to reduce dropout risk (for traditional students) […]” (p. 1353). Given that the financing of higher education in Portugal has progressively shifted from the state’s responsibility to that of the students' and their families, as in many other countries (Marginson, 2018; Tight, 2020), this calls for a more accountable evaluation of private/public funding and demands more effective social justice policies (Pitman et al., 2019). Thus, this study investigates the effect of receiving social scholarships/financial aid on degree completion on due time. Its specific objective is to estimate the fixed effect of receiving or not receiving a social scholarship on the probability of degree completion on due time. The study contributes to the themes of students’ success (degree completion), equity (financial aid), system evaluation and resource allocation. Since Portugal is one of the European countries where the costs of higher education are supported primarily by taxpayers, this topic of research matters not only for public policy regarding the increase of equity, but also for the efficiency of public resources allocation.