Increasing persistence in university level studies is a major
concern worldwide. For example, in the United States an average of 70 % of
students drop out from university studies, whereas in Europe the average
drop-out rate is ca. 40 %. In Finland, university level chemistry education
shows also a drop-out rate of ca. 40 %, and a half of this number consists of
students who change their major subject. The major changers thus constitute an
important part of the Finnish drop-out student population. With such high drop-out
rates, it is of utmost importance to find ways for the early identification of students
at risk of dropping completely or changing their major. The ultimate aim of this
dissertation was to develop an instrument that could be used for the prediction
of students at risk. This instrument, the ChemApproach questionnaire, was
designed in such a way that it probes the learning approach features of
chemistry students. As an additional feature in comparison with traditional
learning approach instruments, ChemApproach also takes into account approaches
to laboratory work. The results obtained during this thesis work indicate that
the degree of the presence of certain learning approach features, namely the
submissive surface and the practical deep approach features, strongly predict
the students’ persistence, drop-out and change of major subject. It was
confirmed that these features even override the initial intention of wanting to
change major subject. The high impact of the practical deep approach highlights
the high importance laboratory work in persistence and it serves as an indication
of the good functionality of the ChemApproach questionnaire. As a consequence
of the present thesis work, it was possible to propose institutional and teaching
practices that can be used to decrease the level of the submissive surface approach
and increase the level of the practical deep approach and thus increase persistence
in chemistry studies.