Page 134 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

5.3 Outcomes in university: achievement and academic adjustment
5.3.1 Achievement
In this study we looked at students’ grade point average (GPA) and the number of credits they had attained (EC) in the rst semester of the rst year of their university studies. Previous research showed that rst-year results are valid predictors of student success throughout higher education. For example, Kahn and Nauta (2001) found that rst-semester GPA was the primary predictor of persistence to the sophomore year, Allen and Robbins (2007) found that rst-year GPA was a strong predictor of major persistence, and Pascarella and Terenzini’s (2005) review emphasised the crucial role of rst-year college GPA in predicting educational attainment and persistence.
5.3.2 Academic adjustment
Next to achievement in university, we also investigated how the pro les di ered 5 regarding academic adjustment. A student’s level of adjustment to the new
environment is an e ective measure of how well a student has made the transition to
university, since adjustment refers to how well a person can cope with the demands
of a new situation. Academic adjustment then refers to the ability to cope with the academic demands of the university environment (Baker & Siryk, 1989), which depends on four separate aspects: motivation to learn and having clear academic goals; applying oneself to academic work; exerting e ort to meet academic demands; and being satis ed with the academic environment (Baker & Siryk, 1984). Prior literature consistently showed the importance of academic adjustment in predicting performance (Kamphorst, Hofman, Jansen, & Terlouw, 2012; McKenzie & Schweitzer, 2001; Prins, 1997; Rienties, Beausaert, Grohnert, Niemantsverdriet, & Kommers, 2012) and persistence (Kennedy, Sheckley, & Kehrhahn, 2000) in higher education. In this study, we focused only on academic adjustment and not on social or personal-emotional adjustment, because previous research consistently showed that academic adjustment has the most in uence on academic achievement (Bailey & Phillips, 2016; Rienties et al., 2012). Moreover, academic adjustment explained variance in achievement beyond high school GPA, traditionally the most important predictor of university achievement (McKenzie & Schweitzer, 2001). is makes academic adjustment an important concept to emphasise when investigating study success, and speci cally the transition from secondary to university education.
Pro les of student engagement
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