Page 238 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

chances of having unclear or unrealistic expectations of the degree programme, which in turn can lead to not being satis ed with the programme once in university and consequently dropping out (Chapter 7; Marland, 2003). To prepare students better for humanities and social sciences university degrees and to familiarise students with the degree programmes within these elds, possibilities for paying attentions to them at secondary school must be explored. ese elds could for example be embedded in social studies (‘maatschappijwetenschappen’), a relatively new subject in Dutch pre-university education and regrettably only available as an elective in some schools. Questionnaire results showed that this subject is quite popular: Many students in schools who do not o er this subject would have liked to choose it (Onderwijsraad, 2011). Moreover, the name itself, that ends with ‘wetenschappen’ (‘sciences’), may already contribute to the image of the humanities and social sciences tracks as also being academic.
Unfortunately, Chapter 6 showed that the nal examination requirements as well as teachers’ lack of time may function as barriers for doing precisely those things that could contribute to university readiness, as also pointed out in the literature (Marland, 2003). Moreover, humanities and social sciences teachers, especially those who graduated from university a while ago, may not be closely connected to the university anymore and therefore no longer have a realistic idea of the contemporary curriculum nor be up-to-date with the latest research in their eld, and thus unable to use this in their teaching. In the next paragraph we will describe possible solutions for this lack of alignment, many of which are already being conducted on a small scale, i.e., by some schools and by some universities.
8.5.3 Collaboration between schools and universities
Essential in any educational transition is that both the delivering and receiving 8 institutions are involved. To enable a smooth transition collaboration is crucial.
ree types of collaboration between secondary schools and universities can
be distinguished, which vary in intensity: mutual expectation management;
alignment; and integrative practices. e rst type is necessary for all students (and teachers) and the second and third ones are desirable for all, but speci cally useful for certain groups of students. In line with the goals of this thesis, we will mainly focus on secondary schools when discussing ideas for collaboration, but of course many initiatives can be taken – and some are already being taken – by universities, in particular by rst-year university lecturers or programme coordinators.
Conclusion and discussion
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