Page 198 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

study programme. e outcome variable, intention to persist, thus measured a di erent entity than the outcome variables GPA and credits, which did not directly relate to a speci c degree programme. If we had measured intention to persist as a students’ intention to stay in university altogether or drop out completely, academic adjustment may have played a role.
7.5.2 Implications
e results indicated the crucial role of academic adjustment in predicting achievement in university. Self-regulated study behaviour, satisfaction with degree programme choice, and, to a lesser extent, academic motivation in uenced students’ academic adjustment. All these factors can be in uenced, both before and a er the transition. For example, secondary education could emphasise the development of self-regulated study behaviour. Jansen and Suhre (2010) showed that study skills preparation in secondary school, regarding time management and learning skills, positively in uenced university students’ study behaviour. We also found a connection between academic self-e cacy and self-regulated study behaviour (e.g., Bou ard-Bouchard et al., 1991). Schunk and Ermter (2000) stated that when either of these aspects is low or lacking, the other aspect cannot fully develop, because they in uence each other reciprocally. erefore, they recommended addressing self-e cacy and self-regulation competence together: Interventions that teach self-regulation skills should contain components that increase students’ con dence in their academic skills (Schunk & Ermter, 2000).
University sta should temper their expectations of rst-year students’ self- 7 regulation skills. Previous studies showed that many rst-year lecturers believe
students already possess these skills (Cook & Leckey, 1999), and therefore, they
do not emphasise the (further) development of these skills, even though they are
crucial to student success. Paying attention to study skill development, however, may produce positive e ects. Interventions focused on the development of academic skills led to gains in academic achievement (Evans & Burck, 1992). Promoting good study behaviour alone may not be su cient, in that academic motivation also in uenced adjustment. Moreover, many researchers emphasised the importance of combining study skills factors and motivational factors to boost students’ achievement (Eccles & Wig eld, 2002; Pintrich et al., 1993; Robbins et al., 2004). Of Zepke and Leach’s (2010) ten proposed actions to enhance higher education students’ engagement, the rst two focus on increasing motivation: (1) enhancing students’ self-belief and (2) enabling students to work autonomously,
Academic adjustment in university
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