Academic Risk Factors

Examples of Academic Risk Factors in the following topics:

• High School Dropouts

  • Students at risk for dropout based on academic risk factors are those who often have a history of absenteeism and grade retention, academic trouble, and more general disengagement from school life.
  • Students may also be at risk for dropout based on social risk factors.
  • Sociologists tend to group dropout risk factors into different categories, including academic risk factors and school-level risk factors.
  • Academic risk factors relate to the performance of students in school.
  • School structure, curriculum, and size may increase the exposure of students to academic risk factors.

• The Value of Analytics in Decision Making

  • Analytics help decision makers determine risk, weigh outcomes, and quantify costs and benefits associated with decisions.
  • These types of analysis can explain the relationship between factors that influence outcomes; they can also help prioritize improvement and other planning efforts.
  • Models capture relationships among many factors, allowing an assessment of risk or potential associated with a particular set of conditions.
  • Data mining draws on large numbers of records to identify patterns that can then be identified as opportunities or risks.
  • For example, by analyzing grades for an entire class of first-year students, academic advisers can predict which students are most likely to struggle in the class.

• Approaches to Assessing Risk

  • Since planned actions are subject to large cost and benefit risks, proper risk assessment and risk management for such actions are crucial to making them successful.
  • As risk carries so many different meanings, there are many formal methods used to assess or to "measure" risk.
  • For example, in many cases a critical factor is human decision making.
  • In a financial institution, enterprise risk management is normally thought of as the combination of credit risk, interest rate risk or asset liability management, market risk, and operational risk.
  • In project management, risk management can include: planning how risk will be managed, assigning a risk officer, maintaining a database of live risks, and preparing risk mitigation plans.

• The Five-Factor Model

  • The five-factor model organizes all personality traits along a continuum of five factors: openness, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
  • Fiske was unable to find support for Cattell's expansive 16 factors of personality, but instead found support for only five factors.
  • Numerous studies have found a positive correlation between conscientiousness and academic success.
  • Some psychologists have dissented from the model because they feel it neglects other domains of personality, such as religiosity, manipulativeness/machiavellianism, honesty, sexiness/seductiveness, thriftiness, conservativeness, masculinity/femininity, snobbishness/egotism, sense of humor, and risk-taking/thrill-seeking.
  • A larger number of factors may, in fact, underlie these five factors; this has led to disputes about the "true" number of factors.

• Academic Skills and Knowledge

  • In the United States, the term "academic" is approximately synonymous with that of the job title professor, although in recent decades a growing number of institutions include librarians in the category of "academic staff. "
  • The degree awarded for completed study is the primary academic qualification.
  • "Academic capital" is a term used by sociologists to represent how an individual's amount of education and other academic experience can be used to gain a place in society.
  • Much like other forms of capital, social capital, economic capital, and cultural capital, academic capital doesn't depend on one sole factor but instead is made up of many different factors, including the individual's academic transmission from his/her family, status of the academic institutions attended, and publications produced by the individual.
  • Numerous studies have been done involving the idea of academic capital, and scholars have disagreed on what counts as academic capital.

• Factoring Accounts Receivable

  • Under recourse factoring, the client is not protected against the risk of bad debts.
  • Other variations include partial non-recourse, where the factor's assumption of credit risk is limited by time, and partial recourse, where the factor and its client (the seller of the accounts) share credit risk.
  • Factors never assume "quality" risk, and even a non-recourse factor can charge back a purchased account which does not collect for reasons other than credit risk assumed by the factor, (e.g., the account debtor disputes the quality or quantity of the goods or services delivered by the factor's client).
  • Counter party credit risk: risk covered debtors can be re-insured, which limit the risks of a factor.
  • Explain the business of factoring and assess the risks of the involved parties

• Reinvestment Risk

  • Reinvestment risk is the risk that a bond is repaid early, and an investor has to find a new place to invest with the risk of lower returns.
  • Reinvestment risk is one of the main genres of financial risk.
  • Reinvestment risk is more likely when interest rates are declining.
  • Pension funds are also subject to reinvestment risk.
  • Two factors that have a bearing on the degree of reinvestment risk are:

• Tracking Systems

  • Tracking sorts students into different groups depending on academic ability; however, other factors often influence placement.
  • Tracking sorts and separates students by academic ability.
  • Students attend academic classes only with students whose overall academic achievement is the same as their own.
  • Since high self-esteem is correlated with high academic achievement, tracking should, theoretically, promote academic success.
  • Although track assignment is theoretically based on academic ability, other factors often influence placement.

• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

  • Academic difficulties and problems with relationships may be frequent.
  • Many people with a diagnosis of ADHD are very successful; however, the disorder can make academic and work performance more challenging.
  • Most researchers agree that it is an interaction between genetic and environmental factors, as is the case with most psychiatric disorders.
  • Environmental factors are also thought to play a significant role in the development of ADHD.
  • Ingestion of alcohol or tobacco during pregnancy can affect central-nervous-system development and can increase the risk of offspring developing the disorder.

• Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)

  • This anxiety—or efforts to avoid the anxiety-inducing situation—must cause considerable distress and an impaired ability to function in at least some parts of social, occupational, academic, or daily life.
  • Studies suggest that genetics can play a part in combination with environmental factors.
  • It has been shown that there is a two- to threefold greater risk of having social phobia if a first-degree relative also has the disorder; this could be due to genetics and/or due to children acquiring social fears and avoidance through observational learning.
  • One of the most well-established risk factors for developing social anxiety disorder is behavioral inhibition (Clauss & Blackford, 2012).
  • A recent statistical review of studies demonstrated that behavioral inhibition was associated with a greater-than sevenfold increase in the risk of development of social anxiety disorder, indicating that behavioral inhibition is a major risk factor for the disorder (Clauss & Blackford, 2012).