Page 24 - Secondary school students’ university readiness and their transition to university Els van Rooij

Introduction
Academic interest (Chapters 4, 5, and 7) 1 e learning content in university di ers from that in secondary school. One
important distinction is the focus on research, which is quite prominent in
Dutch research universities. In order for new university students to be satis ed
with the new learning environment it is important that they are interested in gaining abstract, in-depth, inquiry-based knowledge – they must be drawn to this kind of knowledge – and that they are excited about designing and conducting research. is interest, to which we refer as ‘academic interest’, may then also be an important part of university readiness. In this thesis, we de ne academic interest as individual interest in gaining academic knowledge in a chosen eld and its research-based activities – in contrast to situational interest, which refers to temporary interest aroused by a certain situation. is de nition aligns with Hidi and Renninger’s (2006, p. 112) conceptualisation of interest as a motivational variable that “refers to the psychological state of engaging or the predisposition to reengage with particular classes of objects, events, or ideas over time”. Or, put more simply by Schunk, Pintrich, and Meece (2008, p. 210): “people’s liking and willful engagement in an activity”. No research has speci cally looked into academic interest in general nor into its relationship with university readiness or success in university education, but studies on closely related constructs provide some useful starting points on which we have built our hypotheses. Most importantly, research showed that interest in a speci c subject or course is a powerful predictor of learning outcomes in that same subject or course (Ainley, Hidi, & Berndor , 2002; Singh, Granville, & Dika, 2002). Additionally, links have been found between interest and academic self-e cacy (Chen et al., 2016). As our conception of academic interest is closely related to intrinsic motivation, i.e., performing a speci c behaviour or activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for a speci c reward or consequence (Ryan & Deci, 2000), we were interested in nding out whether academic motivation would have the same e ects as intrinsic motivation, which is related to achievement (Richardson et al., 2012; Robbins et al., 2004) and to adjustment to university (Lynch, 2009; Petersen et al., 2009).
Academic self-e cacy (Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 7)
Self-e cacy in general refers to an individual’s perception of his or her ability to perform adequately in a given situation (Bandura, 1997). Academic self- e cacy then relates to self-e cacy in academic settings. Academic self-e cacy has consistently been found to relate to favourable outcomes in postsecondary
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