Students enter college exceedingly confident that they will earn high grades and engage themselves fully in their courses (e.g., attend all of their classes and help-sessions, submit extra-credit work). However, students' grades and academic behaviors often do not match their expectations. This is especially true in introductory science courses, where grades and academic engagement are often low, even in courses taught by award-winning instructors. Students' poor academic behaviors (e.g., skipping class, ignoring opportunities to improve their grades) often bewilder instructors, who understand that academic success depends largely on students' levels of academic engagement. In this study, we strive to understand what underlie students' academic behaviors and overconfidence. To do this, we analyzed the grades, academic behaviors, and academic predictions of students who earned differing final grades in a large introductory biology course. We asked three sets of questions, the first of which involved grades earned by students on exams throughout the course. How, on average, do students' grades fluctuate throughout the semester? Do students predict high grades late into the semester because their grades are high until late into the semester? The second set of questions involved students' beliefs about the academic behaviors that are important for success, such as class attendance, submission of extra-credit assignments, and attendance at help-sessions. Finally, we wondered how students' scores on exams
throughout the semester affect students' confidence about their final grades. How accurately do students predict their grades throughout the semester? Results indicate that students who eventually earn lower grades are overconfident about their final grades, whereas students who earn higher grades are more likely to be realistic about, or even underestimate, their grades, and are much more likely to display the academic behaviors associated with higher grades.