Page 194 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

7.4.2 Path analysis
As can be deduced from Figure 7.1, our conceptual model consisted of many links, between each of the motivational and behavioural variables and academic adjustment and between those and each of the student success outcomes. However, because correlations lower than .25 would likely have resulted in insigni cant links in the model, we excluded the hypothesised pathways between academic motivation and GPA, EC, and intention to persist, and those between academic self-e cacy and EC and intention to persist. We then tested this model in Mplus. Goodness-of- t statistics showed that this model had good t (Χ2 (11) = 14.91, p = .07, Χ2/df = 1.36, RMSEA = .04 \[con dence interval = .00–.08\], CFI = .99, TLI = .98, SRMR = .06). However, many of the pathways were insigni cant: Secondary school GPA and academic self-e cacy were not signi cantly related to academic adjustment; self-regulated study behaviour and satisfaction with the choice of degree programme were not signi cantly related to GPA; secondary school GPA, self-regulated study behaviour, and satisfaction with the programme were not signi cantly related to credits; and academic adjustment was not signi cantly related to intention to persist.
ese results implied that many links from the motivational and behavioural
variables a ected university success outcomes not directly but through adjustment.
erefore, we tested a second model in which we removed all insigni cant
pathways from the rst model. We present this model in Figure 7.2. is model
achieved good t: Χ2 (19) = 20.55, p = .36, Χ2/df = 1.08, RMSEA = .02 \[CI = .00–
.06\], CFI = .99, TLI = .99, SRMR = .06. All hypothesised links were signi cant, 7 except the link from academic self-e cacy to university GPA (β = .13 (SE = .06),
p = .06). Moreover, university GPA and intention to persist were not signi cantly
related to each other (β = .12 (SE = .07), p = .12) and neither were self-regulated
study behaviour and academic motivation (β = .14 (SE = .08), p = .10). e results
showed that three motivational and behavioural variables a ected two university
success outcomes, GPA and credits, through academic adjustment. Self-regulated
study behaviour (β = .61), academic motivation (β = .14), and satisfaction with
the choice of degree programme (β = .36) had impacts on academic adjustment.
Academic self-e cacy was not signi cantly related to university GPA or academic
adjustment, but did correlate highly with self-regulated study behaviour (β = .63),
thereby indirectly in uencing adjustment and subsequent achievement. In total,
72% of the variance in academic adjustment was explained by the aforementioned
variables. Academic adjustment in uenced both GPA (β = .38) and the number of
Academic adjustment in university
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