Successful students have their own goals and expectations related to assignments, areas of study and future careers (Lunneborg &Lunnegorg, 1976).

Success in school is also generated by one's own demand to seek and discover new and challenging experiences. This seeking is combined with setting one's own discovery course, instead of merely "taking in" what is offered by instructors. Lack of flexibility was found to be characteristic of drop-outs (Jones, 1955; Lavin, 1965). One needs to be partially conformist and partially experimental in thinking. For example, college seniors tend to integrate more diversity and relativism into their lives and accept more ambiguity than freshman (Perry, 1970). Researchers working with the Omnibus Personality Inventory included a scale of complexity as a part of an experimental and flexible orientation. This is an important part of "intellectual disposition" (Heist, 1964). Attaining goals and expectations and a relative posture towards knowledge development appears a necessary characteristic to success (Schmidt, 1985, Jones 1955; Lavin, 1965).