Page 196 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

more successful interactions with the academic experience and were better able to cope with the academic demands of the university environment). Furthermore, students with better academic adjustment and who had a higher GPA in secondary education had a higher university GPA. In addition, better academic adjustment led to more credits in the rst half of the rst semester of university. However, whether these students actually intended to persist was a di erent question: It depended less on the level of academic adjustment and secondary school GPA than on their satisfaction with their chosen degree programme. Our results thus con rmed the importance of academic adjustment as a measure of how successfully the student has made the transition from secondary school to higher education in predicting study results in the rst year of university. In addition, academic adjustment was substantially more important in predicting the number of attained credits and university GPA than secondary school GPA. us, it is again con rmed that rst-year students’ experiences, more speci cally how they interact with the learning environment, have more impact on their success than their previous results (Kuh et al., 2006).
Motivational and behavioural factors did not in uence GPA and credits
directly but only through academic adjustment. us, e ectively regulating
study behaviour (e.g., maintaining study schedules, turning o social media
when studying), being intrinsically motivated to gain academic knowledge, and
being satis ed with chosen degree programme did not necessarily mean students
would achieve high grades and obtain all credits. It did, however, increase their
chances of being well-adjusted (i.e., able to cope with the academic demands of 7 the new learning environment). Subsequently, this academic adjustment led to a
better GPA and more credits. Studies that tested the e ects of these motivational
and behavioural factors as having only direct e ects on achievement may underemphasise the pivotal role of adjustment.
Another important nding was that self-regulated study behaviour exerted the largest in uence on academic adjustment of all measured variables. is means that in order to experience a smooth transition, it is very important that students are capable of regulating their study behaviour and less important that they are intrinsically motivated and satis ed with the degree programme. e high degree of self-regulation that university demands is one of the largest di erences with secondary school; therefore, students who are good self-regulators will adjust more easily. Another possible explanation is that behavioural factors are more important in explaining adjustment than motivational ones. In this regard, Astin’s
Academic adjustment in university
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