Navigating the “Minefield” of Pedagogical Success in University Education: Winners and Losers Using a Psychological Lens

Tertiary education is a high-stakes environment in which students, educators, and institutions contend with competing pressures, expectations, and entrenched structural inequities. This study examined the intersection of psychological, socio-economic, and institutional factors associated with divergent academic trajectories among students and academic staff in Zimbabwean universities. The study drew on a psychological framework combining self-determination theory, attribution theory, and Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological systems model to examine why students in the same university setting report different academic and psychosocial outcomes. A post-positivist paradigm situated within a pragmatic worldview was adopted, and a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was implemented across four universities in Zimbabwe. The target population comprised undergraduate students and academic staff at four university institutions in the Midlands and Harare provinces. A sample of 134 students, 48 academic staff, and 11 psychosocial support personnel (3 deans of students, 6 clinic staff, and 2 chaplains) was drawn. Quantitative data were collected using the Academic Motivation Scale, the Attributional Style Questionnaire for Academic Contexts, and the Academic Psychological Safety Scale; qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with academic staff and psychosocial support personnel and focus group discussions with students. Intrinsic motivation and academic psychological safety were the psychological variables most strongly associated with cumulative grade point average, whereas higher external (controlled) motivation and maladaptive attributional styles were associated with lower performance. Learned helplessness and stereotype threat were not statistically associated with grade point average in this sample, and possible reasons are considered. The qualitative findings indicate how institutional cultures and pedagogical practices are implicated in these patterns for students and academics alike. The study concludes that pedagogical success warrants systemic re-imagining at every institutional level, moving beyond individualist meritocratic narratives towards practice that is structurally informed and psychologically sensitive. The study recommends a review of policy, curriculum design, and lecturer development to improve the equity of academic outcomes in tertiary education. Because the design is cross-sectional, the associations reported here should not be read as causal.

Pedagogical success; Tertiary education; Psychological lens; Winners and losers; Higher education equity.

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