The Key Predictors of Success in University in France: What Are the Contributing Factors and Possible New Directions in Educational Research?

In France, the university has been experiencing a major crisis for several decades in the form of a high rate of student failure, particularly during the licence, or first cycle of studies. This prolonged crisis has led educational researchers to focus on the predictors of student failure in University. This paper reviews the existing literature on both student failure and success in University in the French context. We first conduct a thorough analysis of the various factors explaining failure rates, and then explore in more depth the factors explaining student success, which have thus far been under-researched in France. We identify several types of predicators, including individual-level factors, which have been the focus of extensive research in France over the past number of years, and contextual factors, such as professors’ teaching practices, which constitute a relatively novel focus in French educational research.