Page 182 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

7.1 Introduction
Dropout rates in the rst year of university are high worldwide. In the Netherlands,
where this study was conducted, 33% of rst-year university students do not
continue to the second year of the programme they initially started (Inspectie van
het Onderwijs, 2016). A smooth transition from secondary school to university
increases the chances of student success, in terms of achievement and persistence
(Lowe & Cook, 2003; Rienties, Beausaert, Grohnert, Niemantsverdriet, &
Kommers, 2012). erefore, it is important for university educators to understand
how to improve this transition for students. An e ective measure of how well a
student has made the transition to university is the level of academic adjustment
to this new environment. In this study, we draw on traditional theories of student
success (e.g., Tinto (1993) and Astin (1999)) and earlier research on academic
adjustment (Baker & Siryk, 1989) and conceptualise academic adjustment as the
ability to have successful interactions with the new academic environment and
to cope with its academic demands. In other words, it revolves around the t
between the student and the university environment (Ramsay, Jones, & Barker,
2007). To make the concept of academic adjustment more explicit, we follow
Baker and Siryk’s (1984) categorisation of four aspects of academic adjustment,
which are 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. Previous research consistently showed that
academic adjustment in uences academic achievement (Bailey & Phillips, 2016; 7 Rienties et al., 2012).
is study has two goals. First, we aim to determine which motivational and behavioural variables measured in the rst year of university a ect students’ academic adjustment and success, i.e., grade point average (GPA), number of attained study credits (EC), and intention to persist a er three months of study. An important question here is which variables in uence student success, either directly or indirectly through adjustment. Second, we investigate the magnitude of the in uence of academic adjustment on the three outcome variables. Most research only uses one outcome measure, even though the speci c outcome measure chosen may a ect the results. Robbins et al. (2004) showed, for example, that the impact of predictive factors di ers for achievement and persistence. Moreover, these outcome measures in themselves di er. A student’s GPA re ects how well a student performs, whereas the number of credits merely shows
Academic adjustment in university
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