Kit Double, Therese Hopfenbeck and Joshua McGrane—Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment
This study examined student- and school-level predictors of academic performance among International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) students. The analysis used a broad sample longitudinal dataset of DP students (2016–2018). The total sample for this study included 4,858 students from 99 schools in 36 countries. Consistent with findings from other research, this study suggests that a broad set of student and school factors predict academic performance in the DP. The results indicate that the strongest predictor of academic performance is students’ self-reported academic achievements, along with factors related to instructional and learning time, such as class and study time. Certain activities that place additional time demands on students were negatively associated with academic performance. Lastly, students who became either happier or less isolated during the course of the DP tended to perform better academically.
