Page 185 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

Chapter 7
e cacy relates to e ort and perseverance in learning, self-regulation, less stress in demanding situations, and better adjustment to new learning situations (Chemers et al., 2001). McKenzie and Schweitzer (2001) found that the prediction of GPA improved by 12% when academic integration and self-e cacy were added to a model with university entry score as a predictor. De Clercq et al. (2013), who used an inclusive approach that took into account several predictors, also reported that self-e cacy was one of the most powerful predictors of GPA at the end of the rst year in university. When investigating persistence as an outcome measure, Kennedy et al. (2000) found no di erences in self-e cacy between students who continued their studies a er one year and those who did not. Still there is some evidence that self-e cacy could a ect persistence, because Willcoxson et al. (2011) found that the opposite of academic self-e cacy, lack of academic con dence, caused students to give up their studies. Examining the relationship between academic self-e cacy and adjustment, several studies showed that self-e cacy, or the comparable concept of academic self-con dence, positively a ected adjustment (Chemers et al., 2001; Martin et al., 1999). is nding can be explained by Bandura’s (1997) self-e cacy theory, which states that people high in e cacy show more persistence in the face of challenges. e transition from secondary education to university is such a challenge. Moreover, Aspelmeier et al. (2012), who found that self-esteem and internal locus of control had a positive e ect on rst-year students’ academic adjustment, suggested that academic self- e cacy is an important factor to consider in future research on adjustment. We thus hypothesised that academic self-e cacy in uences achievement both directly and via adjustment.
Degree programme satisfaction. Although models explaining university success included degree programme satisfaction less o en than motivation and self- e cacy, it may be crucial for predicting persistence (Suhre et al., 2007; Yorke and Longden 2007), especially in the Netherlands and many other European countries such as Germany and Belgium, where students entering university immediately start in a speci c major. Not being satis ed with the programme is one of the most important determinants of dropping out (De Buck, 2009; Wartenbergh & Van den Broek, 2008). Moreover, satisfaction relates to achievement; Suhre et al. (2007) showed that students who were more satis ed obtained more credits. We know of no research that investigates the relationship between degree programme satisfaction and academic adjustment, but we expect that students who are satis ed can better cope with academic demands. In the rst few weeks of the
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