Does the active participation of students serve as a predictor of good marks achievement?

The new context in education framed under the European Higher Education Area, EHEA, entails a radical change in the way students and teachers interact. Students must adopt an active role in their learning processes in which the educator no longer remains as the sole conductor but rather serves the purpose of facilitating the student's learning processes. This paper presents an experiment aimed at investigating potential relationships between the student's attitude towards active learning and his or her final grading. The results of the experiment conducted in the context of a subject on Operations Management delivered to a group of 100 students in business administration reveal (1) a positive relationship between the student's involvement in active learning and higher grading and (2) the special relevance of attendance and written tasks conducted along the course as far as the effectiveness of active learning is concerned.