Non-academic characteristics and traits, such as academic self-efficacy and conscientiousness, have maintained the interest of higher education researchers for decades. A considerable amount of research has found that these non-cognitive variables (NCVs) are generally predictive of undergraduate success. However, most prior studies have focused on the use of NCVs in 4-year colleges, and understanding if and how these measures predict the academic trajectories of community college students has received less attention. As past work has indicated that NCVs are differentially predictive for students from different backgrounds, such an examination is needed. Drawing on data from two diverse community colleges, our study addresses this need by exploring if seven popular NCVs predict both short and longer-term student outcomes, how these measures are related to help-seeking behaviors, and their utility in identifying students at risk of serious academic failures. We find statistically significant relationships between NCVs and GPA outcomes but conclude that their practical utility appears trivial.

中文翻译：

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非认知变量在识别需要目标支持的社区大学生中的作用

诸如学术自我效能感和尽责性之类的非学术性特征一直保持着高等教育研究者的兴趣。大量研究发现，这些非认知变量（NCV）通常是预测学生成功的因素。但是，大多数先前的研究都集中在4年制大学中使用NCV，而了解这些措施是否以及如何预测社区大学生的学业轨迹却很少受到关注。过去的工作表明，对于来自不同背景的学生，NCV具有不同的预测能力，因此需要进行这种检查。利用来自两所不同社区学院的数据，我们的研究通过探索七种流行的NCV是否可以预测短期和长期学生的学习成果来满足这一需求，这些措施与寻求帮助行为有何关系，以及它们在识别有严重学习失败风险的学生中的作用。我们发现NCV和GPA结局之间在统计上有显着关系，但得出结论，它们的实际效用显得微不足道。