Page 208 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

is study showed the value of distinguishing between di erent types and levels of engagement in secondary school and the di erential e ects of these engagement pro les on students’ academic adjustment and achievement in their rst year at university.
8.1.4 Chapter 6: Secondary school teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding university preparation
Secondary school teachers could play an important role in preparing students (better) for university, but there is not much knowledge about this role. In this study, we were interested in teachers’ beliefs regarding university readiness attributes, their role perception regarding university preparation, and their practices to realise it. e four research questions were:
1. What are teachers’ beliefs about aspects of university readiness?
2. How do teachers contribute to their students’ university readiness?
3. What are teachers’ beliefs about their role in the process of preparing
students for university?
4. Do teachers experience barriers that hinder them from attending to
university preparation, and if so, what are these barriers, and how
might they be overcome?
Semi-structured interviews were held with 50 teachers who taught the upper
grades of pre-university education. Framework analysis was applied, using
a framework of university readiness based on the four-key model of college
readiness by Conley, which consists of cognitive strategies, content knowledge,
learning skills and techniques, and transition knowledge and skills. e results
revealed that teachers believed that attributes falling into the category of learning
skills and techniques were the most important aspects of university readiness. 8 ese beliefs were not in line with teachers’ university preparation practices,
however, because these mainly consisted of providing students with information
about studying at university (transition knowledge), mostly on the students’
initiative, i.e., by answering their questions. Although the majority of teachers saw
university preparation as an important part of their job, this was not a unanimous
viewpoint. A considerable number of teachers felt that preparing students for the
national examinations at the end of grade 12 was equal to university preparation,
in line with the common conception that being eligible for university, i.e., having
graduated from pre-university education, implies being ready for university. Furthermore, university preparation was hardly an explicit goal or focus: Even
Conclusion and discussion
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