The Effective Life-long Learning Inventory (ELLI) has been designed to raise students' awareness of their own learning power, summarised in seven key dimensions. This study used ELLI with level 4 and level 6 cohorts in Biosciences programmes at Northumbria University as an indicator of academic performance.The dimension with the highest mean score for level 4 students was 'Meaning Making', followed by 'Changing and Learning'. 'Creativity' had the lowest mean score. Students were divided into two groups with respect to their academic achievement: the 'successful' and the 'satisfactory' group. The successful group scored higher in all dimensions, compared to the satisfactory group. The differences in the scores for 'Meaning Making' and 'Creativity' were statistically significant. Large differences were also found for 'Changing and Learning', 'Strategic Awareness', and 'Resilence'. Interestingly, all of these, with the exception of 'Meaning Making', were also the dimensions in which level 6 students scored higher than level 4 students, but the differences were not statistically significant.Results indicate that ELLI is a useful tool to identify key dispositions in successful learners, which could inform interventions to improve learning within a cohort.