A Psychometric Study of Academic Difficulty and Psychiatric Illness in Students

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Abstract
The incidence of psychiatric and academic difficulty in one year's intake of university students is reported. Psychometric scores of problem students classified by psychiatric and academic status are compared with the scores of control subjects. The results suggest that emotional factors are of more importance than intellectual ones in determining academic failure. None of the tests is capable of providing prediction of difficulty at a useful level, but the Nufferno stress gain measure, taken in combination with the EPI neuroticism score, may enable one to identify a vulnerable group. "Problem" students seem to fall into three groups; psychiatrically disturbed but academically coping, psychiatrically disturbed and academically failing and psychiatrically well but academically failing, there being a number of suggestive, and some significant, psychometric differences between these groups.

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