Page 209 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

Chapter 8
though most teachers described classroom practices that could contribute to university preparation (e.g., helping students develop a certain independence or organising speci c research activities), they also admitted that o en they did not consciously perform these practices with the goal of university readiness in their minds. Factors that caused a small number of teachers to pay explicit attention to university preparation were their own experiences in university, e.g., having had a hard time adjusting to university themselves, and/or having children who were attending university. e barriers for paying (more) attention to university preparation that were mentioned most were the time-consuming preparation for the nal examinations and the lack of a clear idea about what universities expect from rst-year students.
is study showed that, at secondary schools, there is a need for more awareness about conscious university preparation, as well as for collaboration between schools on the one hand and universities on the other, be it only in the form of mutual expectation management.
8.1.5 Chapter 7: Academic adjustment as a pivotal process in the transition from secondary education to university
Academic adjustment, i.e., interacting successfully with the new academic environment and being able to cope with its academic demands, can be seen as a measure of how well a student has made the transition from secondary school to university. e review (Chapter 3) showed the importance of academic adjustment as a predictor of rst-year university students’ success. In this study, we aimed for insight into how several motivational and behavioural factors a ect academic adjustment and to what extent both academic adjustment and said factors a ect three di erent outcomes of university success, namely GPA, number of obtained credits, and intention to persist into the second year. ree research questions were central in this study:
1. Which motivational and behavioural variables measured in the rst year of university a ect students’ academic adjustment and success?
2. Do they a ect student success directly or through academic
adjustment?
3. What is the magnitude of the in uence of academic adjustment on
academic success?
Structural equation modelling on data of rst-year university students showed that academic adjustment was in uenced by – in order of importance – self-regulated
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