Abstract
The purpose of this thesis was to identify some of the more salient factors that contribute to university student success and to construct the Measure of Student Success (MOSS) as an alternative option to the instruments that are currently available to measure student success. Two manuscripts are presented. In the first, undergraduate participants at a Canadian university were recruited and asked to identify factors they believe contribute to their success while enrolled in an undergraduate program. The second manuscript uses the results from the first and a review of the literature to create and pilot test a new scale to measure university student success based on GPA. An exploratory factor analysis identified three primary factors (Future Perspectives, Student Well-Being, and Competency), with a number of subcomponents for each factor. Overall, the preliminary results evaluating the MOSS are encouraging. Finally, a model of university success is presented to assist in the conceptualization of the complex construct of student success.
