Page 204 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

outcomes of academic success. Some factors were consistently related to GPA, EC, and persistence, namely secondary school GPA, secondary school science coursework, conscientiousness, intrinsic motivation, academic adjustment, lack of regulation, attendance, and observed learning activities. Consistent relationships with GPA and EC, but not with persistence, were found for self-e cacy, fear of failure, expectancies, and number of contact hours. Looking at the categories of factors, we found that ability factors, prior education characteristics, learning environment characteristics, and engagement were most successful in explaining success, i.e., factors within these categories revealed the most signi cant relationships with the three outcome variables. Within some categories, the results di ered depending on which outcome variable was used. Ability mattered most in explaining student success when the outcome variables were GPA and EC, as did personality. Motivational factors were mainly important in predicting GPA, as were, to a small degree, certain learning strategies. Demographic factors mattered most o en when the outcome was EC, and psychosocial factors when the outcomes were EC and persistence. Demographic factors and characteristics of prior education were somewhat more important in Flanders than in the Netherlands. Regarding di erences between professional and university education, the gender gap – female students outperforming male students – was larger in professional education, whereas the level of prior education, personality factors, and learning strategy use were more important in university.
Particularly interesting to our research on university readiness was the low
number of studies that included secondary school variables beyond secondary
school GPA. e studies that did include additional secondary school factors
showed that students who had taken up more science, mathematics, and classical
languages coursework in secondary school obtained higher GPAs in university, 8 obtained more credits, and were more likely to persist. Moreover, students who
had a more positive perception of the t between secondary education and
university obtained more credits. In contrast, how well students conducted career-
decisional tasks in secondary school had no e ect on success in university.
In summary, this systematic review showed for which factors there is consistent evidence of their in uence on student success in Dutch and Flemish higher education. Some of these, i.e., the factors that concern student characteristics, can be seen as important aspects of university readiness.
Conclusion and discussion
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