Abstract:
Academic performance is a topic of interest for students, universities, and all educational systems, for educational policies, teachers, or managers, representing the extent to which a student, a teacher, or an institution has achieved its short or long-term educational goals. Students' perspective on their academic success and achievement is a key component of their professional and personal future. In the present study, we aimed to gather students' perceptions of the concept of performance to provide a comprehensive picture of their academic experience. The study involved 57 people, 31 women (54.4%) and 26 men (45.6%), aged between 18 and 29 years (M=21.93; SD=2.43), students in different study programs, bachelor's or master's, at a Romanian university. Given the objective of the study, the research method selected is the grounded theory method. The study was conducted in two stages: the first stage consisted of a qualitative focus-group approach and the second stage consisted of a face-to-face interview with each participant. The results of the interviews allowed the identification of major interlinked themes of interest. The obtained results are discussed based on the specialized literature.