Performance in higher education: Towards an understanding

The aim of this research was to study the relationship between the academic performance of university students on two variables: entrance grade and socio-economic background. Three independent samples of 144, 106 and 310 students of the University of Aveiro, Portugal, were collected. The findings suggest that (a) entrance grade explains only 12-28 per cent of the degree performance variance, and (b) socio-economic background does not seem to influence performance in higher education.