• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.10-25
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• 2020

This study was conducted to identify the causes of academic weakness and to find the ways to cope with it for the students majoring in science and engineering at the top university in Korea. For this purpose, a questionnaire was conducted for students who experienced academic warning and poor academic performance at A university, and a total of 207 students responded. The results were divided into two groups majoring in science and engineering or not and the characteristics and differences of each group were analyzed. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with five students who had experienced academic warning and poor academic performance. As a result, the group majoring in science and engineering had a relatively low level of difficulty in forming interpersonal relationships and relatively high degree of participation of activities in their departments. The group majoring in science and engineering have a tendency to choose careers that are connected with their majors, and therefore, their response was relatively low due to lack of career goals. However, the group majoring in science and engineering had difficulty in academic performance due to the difference in basic courses and the level of recognition about self-learning strategy needed for university study was relatively low compared with the group majoring in non-science and engineering. When they experienced academic problems, they said that their interest, support, and positive feedback from professors helped them recover their motivation and continue their studies. Through these results, it was confirmed that intervention and support are needed considering the academic situation and characteristics of the students majoring in science and engineering.