Page 227 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

Chapter 8
too optimistic) expectations are not met? Moreover, it is clear that choosing the wrong degree programme is an important reason for dropout. A study into the study choice process that builds on the ndings of Germeijs and Verschueren (2007) would also be bene cial. In addition to mapping students’ execution of Germeijs and Verschueren’s (2006) study choice tasks, it would be worthwhile to conduct a qualitative study into students’ views and expectations of the degree programme they plan to pursue and to what extent these are in line with the actual programme. In that way, universities would know if changes should be made in their information provision. is type of study could be part of an overall research into the e ects of ‘matching’, i.e., the procedure universities o er all prospective students with the aim of obtaining an optimal t between the student’s capacities and motivation on the one side and the potential degree programme on the other, mostly by way of a questionnaire or an intake interview.
Our teacher study was very limited in the sense that it only revealed secondary school teachers’ statements about their practices. e results in this study need to be corroborated by observations, but also by asking students how they experience their actual preparation for university. When teachers say they increase the amount of freedom they give their students throughout the years of secondary education, do students actually notice this? When teachers say they contribute to students’ expectation management about university studies by talking about their own experiences in university, are students aware of the importance of such an account or are they just relieved that it takes up some of the class time and hardly pay attention to it? Furthermore, rst-year university students could give valuable input regarding university preparation at secondary school. Secondary school is still close to them, so they can clearly remember and relate it to how well they are currently coping with the university demands. For which aspects did school prepare them well, for which aspects were they not prepared at all, and is there anything schools could have done di erently that would have prepared them better? Last, a study among rst-year university lecturers could shed light on their expectations of and experiences with rst-year students. What knowledge and skills do they expect their students to have already mastered at secondary school? What kind of academic attitude do they expect them to have? To what extent do their expectations clash with reality? Schoolteachers experienced that being largely in the dark about exactly what universities expect of rst-year students formed a large obstacle in preparing them well. ey will have a better concept of what they are preparing their students for if they know more about these expectations
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