Page 117 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij
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Chapter 4
4.4 Results
4.4.1 Preliminary analyses
Table 4.1 contains the descriptive statistics for need for cognition, academic interest, behavioural engagement, out-of-school academic activities, and self- e cacy in being a successful university student. Table 4.2 presents the bivariate correlations among the factors. In Tables 4.3, 4.4, and 4.5 we also present the gender, coursework, and parental education di erences, respectively. Substantial gender di erences emerged regarding the behavioural variables: Girls were signi cantly more behaviourally engaged than boys, but boys engaged more in out-of-school academic activities. Small but signi cant gender di erences were found for need for cognition and academic interest, such that boys scored higher on these variables. Boys and girls did not di er in their level of self-e cacy. Regarding coursework, we found a large di erence in academic interest and a smaller di erence in need for cognition, both in favour of students taking science coursework. Students with two university-educated parents were substantially higher in need for cognition, engaged in more out-of-school academic activities, and were higher in self-e cacy than students whose parents had not attended university. ese signi cant di erences were entered as control variables in the path model.
Table 4.2 Bivariate correlations between the factors
12345
1. Need for cognition
2. Academic interest
3. Behavioural engagement
4. Out-of-school academic activities 5. Self-e cacy
* p < .05 ** p < .01
Table 4.3 Gender di erences
Variable
Need for cognition
Academic interest
Behavioural engagement Out-of-school academic activities Self-e cacy
-
M (SD) girls
3.37 (0.48) 2.82 (0.71) 3.90 (0.67) 2.05 (0.69) 2.56 (0.49)
.50** .18** .37** .43**
-
.13** .35** .42**
-
M (SD) boys
3.47 (0.48) 2.95 (0.64) 3.30 (0.77) 2.46 (0.71) 2.61 (0.48)
-.08 .04
- .32**
t p
-2.14 .03 -2.03 .04 8.81 <.01 -6.32 <.01 -1.07 .29
-
Cohen’s d
.19 .19 -.81 .59 .18
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