This study aims to explore the effects of previous academic achievement as personal factor, and school factor(i.e., learning climate, school climate) on current academic achievement throughout HLM, and to find out how these effects differ among four groups based on achievement levels. Results showed that previous year academic achievement at the student level had a significant effect on current academic achievement, which varied according to achievement level group. The learning climate adjusted the relationship between previous academic achievement and current academic
achievement. In addition, direct and moderating effects of school factors showed differences according to achievement level group. The direct effect of learning climate tended to decrease as the group of students who did not have basic academic ability showed that the effect of learning climate was limited as the student with low achievement. Also, in the group of excellent, normal, and basic education, there was not a significant difference according to the attitude of learning, whereas in the group with low basic education, low learning climate fixed the learning failure. Based on the results of this study, suggestions for further research are generated such as simplifying the purpose of evaluating the national academic achievement and establishing a follow-up assessment system.