Page 160 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

conceptions of what it means to be ready for university. Little research has investigated teachers’ beliefs about college readiness, though Kirst and Bracco (2004) showed that secondary school teachers held di erent conceptions of college readiness than what college professors expected. Secondary school teachers tended to think graduating from secondary school implied college readiness, whereas professors expected students to master the content knowledge taught in high school but also to possess su cient learning skills, such as the ability to deal with large amounts of content. ese skills are not an explicit part of the high school curriculum, so they are not automatically being mastered during high school. Biology teachers in a qualitative case study by Friedrichsen (2002) saw the following aspects as part of college readiness: being able to think critically and outside the box; having study skills, laboratory skills and con dence; and being able to take tests and read scienti c texts. Although these aspects are important, they do not present a complete picture of what is needed to be ready for university.
In recent decades, college readiness has received substantial attention in
research, especially in the United States. e four-part model of college readiness
by Conley (2008) provides a useful overview of readiness aspects. It includes
four keys a student needs to be successful in college: cognitive strategies, content
knowledge, learning skills and techniques, and transition knowledge and skills. 6 is model can also be applied to university readiness in the Netherlands. e
rst key consists of key cognitive strategies, or ways of thinking and working that
are needed and expected in a college environment, such as analytical thinking,
identifying research questions, reasoning, evaluating, precision, and accuracy.
In higher education, educational content tends to be more complex than that
provided in secondary school; hence, in order to master it, students need good
cognitive strategies. Moreover, especially in research universities like those in
the Netherlands, course content is highly research-based, requiring students
to read academic articles and to design their own research proposals. is task
demands thinking skills. e second factor Conley (2008) refers to is key content
knowledge, or the mastery of knowledge and skills pertaining to the core subjects
and an understanding of the structure of knowledge in these subject areas. For
English for example, key skills include writing and presentation skills. As a third
factor, a prospective university student must possess key learning skills and
techniques. ese academic behaviours or beliefs include time management
skills, study skills, persistence, motivation, and self-e cacy. e importance of
this factor becomes particularly clear when considering the di erence between
Teachers’ beliefs and practices
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