Page 186 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

programme, where students immediately start with several courses speci c to the degree programme they chose, students already get a good view of what the programme entails and they can judge the extent to which the programme meets their expectations and the extent to which they are satis ed with the programme. Adjustment to the whole rst-year experience, which includes – among other things – adjusting to a new way of learning, to more independency, and to a faster learning pace, however, is a process that takes longer. e rationale here is that when students are satis ed with the programme they chose, the process of adjusting academically may be easier. On the contrary, students who are having doubts regarding whether this speci c degree programme matches their interests may be preoccupied with the dilemma of whether or not to proceed with this programme, which may also have a negative e ect on their process of adjusting to university. eir doubts about the programme may even transfer into doubts about belonging in university altogether. us, we expected degree programme satisfaction to be related to academic adjustment, achievement, and persistence.
Behavioural correlate of success and adjustment
Self-regulated study behaviour. Motivation is an important but insu cient
condition to perform well in university. As Robbins et al. (2004) concluded, it
is important to include study skills, along with psychosocial variables, in models
predicting achievement. Self-regulation is a speci cally important skill in the
university environment, where students must regulate their own study behaviour.
Moreover, students who live independently may have many personal and 7 social demands that compete with academic demands. At this point, behaviour
regulation becomes crucial. According to Pintrich (2004), behaviour regulation is part of self-regulation, referring to individual attempts to control one’s own behaviour. Important behaviour regulation activities in the academic environment – or self-regulated study behaviour – are e ort regulation, time management, and environment management. E ort regulation refers to the ability to control the allocation and intensity of e ort, with the goal of doing well in a course; time management involves activities such as making schedules for studying and allocating time for di erent activities; and environment management pertains to nding the optimal physical conditions for a learning environment, such as avoiding distractors (e.g., social media (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011) or people (Pintrich, 2004)). E ort, time, and environment regulation are among the study skills o en connected to achievement (Burlison et al., 2009; Lynch, 2006). A meta-
Academic adjustment in university
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