Not all students are fully engaged with their studies, and some; dramatically so.
They remain enrolled past census date, accumulate a student debt but never submit any assessment items. They fail their subject with a mark of zero; a Zero Fail. We are investigating who these students are, why they exhibit this behaviour and ways to change it.
One key observation has been that students who are completely disengaged from their studies and do not submit any assessment items in their first session (All zero fail grades in the plot below) are very unlikely to find success in their second session.
![Plot showing flow of students with all or some zero fails in their first session. Most withdraw (59%) and in their second session, for those that continue, around 60% get all zero fails and the rest are split between some zero fails, majority fails (with no zero fails), or a majority pass).]](https://cdn.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/4341438/Research-Figure-1-Ghost.png)
Performance of students who receive a zero fail in their commencing session of study. Receiving a zero fail in the first semester of study (left) significantly reduces the chances of success in the second semester of study (right). All zero fail is a is a zero-fail grade in all units of study. Some zero fail is at least one zero-fail and some other grades, passing or non-zero fails.
An active area of this research is the role that the intersection of equity groups plays in highly disengaged students.
For more details read Ghostbusters.
