Ready for university? A cross-national study of students’ perceived preparedness for university

Students’ preparedness for higher education is seen as one of the main factors affecting first-year attrition or study success. In this paper we report on a cross-national study in which students’ preparedness for university was measured before students commenced their study at a university in New Zealand or in the Netherlands. This cross-national project provided a unique opportunity to compare students’ perceptions of readiness for university where students are prepared for higher education in quite different secondary school systems. Departing from a transition framework, and comparing the results in both countries using logistic regression techniques to investigate which aspects of readiness could predict perceived preparedness, we discovered similarities in as well as differences between students’ perceived readiness for university study. It could be argued that differences are caused by the different educational systems at secondary level. However, overall we can conclude that, in spite of differences between the educational systems in the two countries, many differences were not remarkable or very significant. This has clear implications for how we view the relative importance of secondary school preparation and tertiary induction. We can expect greater benefit from implementing first-year pedagogical practices in universities that would assist students to develop their academic skills, than from demanding that high schools prepare students better.     

University as vocational education: working‐class students’ expectations for university

Labor market conditions, a pervasive public discourse about the benefits of higher education, and parental hopes push many young working‐class people into university. The institutional culture and demands of university, however, often remain elusive and fraught with uncertainty. In this paper, I draw on qualitative interviews with first‐generation, working‐class students at a Canadian university to analyze the ways in which these students discuss their reasons to attend and their expectations for university, and the implications of their attitudes for their future success at university. Analysis of the interview data shows how the relatively high and risky investment of working‐class youth in education leads to strong utilitarian and vocational orientations toward university. Although a narrow focus on the career potential of university is generally perceived as problematic, I argue that it may also help working‐class students in their transition to university. Nonetheless, a critical educational process is necessary that not only helps working‐class students achieve their educational and occupational goals, but also understand their unique status in a social institution that they entered as outsiders.     

The impact of higher fees on psychology students’ reasons for attending university

The introduction of the new UK tuition fees resulted in concerns about the impact on higher education (HE) uptake, and raised questions regarding students’ motivations for attending university. The current study explored first-year undergraduate psychology students’ (N = 56) reasons for attending HE through a series of focus groups. These were undertaken both before (n = 21) and after (n = 35) the rise in fees, providing a pre–post comparison of potential changes. Results from the pre-fee rise sample showed that general reasons for attending HE reflected wider, contextual factors, drawing on socio-cultural influences. However, the post-fee rise data suggested that HE uptake was largely motivated more by career opportunities associated with degree-level education. Similarly, reasons for choosing psychology-based courses was related to vocational interest, suggesting strategic decision-making processes of students embarking on HE. The findings present new evidence of the role of financial investment in HE on general and course-specific motivation. Implications of the findings are discussed, with particular reference to the development of relevant employability initiatives within HE curricula.     

The relationship between university students’ environmental identity,decision-making process,and behavior

Environmental education scholars have argued for the need to focus on identity as a more predictive factor than attitude of individuals’ environmental behavior. We examine individuals’ decision-making as a mediating process between identity and behavior. University undergraduates (N = 299) were surveyed, with a select sub-sample interviewed. As expected, environmental identity was correlated with pro-environment behavior (recycling). However, students with lower pro-environmental identity also recycled regularly. Similarly, analysis of decision-making revealed most students, regardless of their environmental identity, do not think much when recycling. Environmental structures such as presence of recycling bins surfaced as a powerful influence on pro-environment behavior.     

The hidden benefits of part-time higher education study to working practices: is there a case for making them more visible?

Within the UK, part-time study is now seen as important in meeting wider government objectives for higher education (HE) and for sustainable economic growth through skills development. Yet, measures to capture the impact of HE may not be wholly appropriate to part-time study. In particular, the continuing focus on tangible, economic measures may be down-playing, or even completely overlooking, other gains. Data from a longitudinal study of part-time students show that irrespective of whether graduates had changed job or employer, or had stayed in the same job, individuals reported substantial work-related gains from their HE studies. We suggest that current research questions that focus on job moves and progression within the labour market, may well be the wrong questions to ask to gauge measures of benefits/returns to HE. Further research is needed to develop measures to fully capture the social returns of skills acquisition through part-time study.     

University rankings in action? The importance of rankings and an excellence competition for university choice of high-ability students

This paper analyzes how high-ability students respond to different indicators of university quality when applying for a university. Are prospective students influenced by quality indicators of a university ranking or by an excellence status awarded within a nationwide competition? And if so, are some quality dimensions, e.g. research reputation, mentoring, faculty infrastructure, students’ satisfaction or the excellence status, more important than others? In order to address these questions, I estimate a random utility model using administrative application data of all German medical schools. As identification relies on the variation in quality indicators over time, I can disentangle the response to changing quality indicators from the common knowledge regarding university attractiveness. Results show that the ranking provides more relevant information in the quality dimensions mentoring, faculty infrastructure and the overall students’ satisfaction than with respect to research.     

Improving exam results,but to what end? The limitations of New Labour's control mechanism for schools: assessment-based accountability

Bernard Barker's thesis that schools have been undermined over the past quarter of a century by a damaging combination of top-down, centralised reform and a desire to impose a market philosophy on education is powerful. This article analyses the nature of the apparatus of control – both statist and free-market – which has been applied to schools over this period. In particular, it will focus on the key control mechanism: the use of test and examination results as apparent measures of schools' quality. It will assess the success of this system, comment on its design faults and its problematic implications for the broad conception of education as understood in The Pendulum Swings, and argue that the concluding note of optimism sounded in Barker's book – about a future of communities exerting greater influence over education locally – appears not to be being realised in policy under the new coalition.     

‘The idea is nice… but not for me’: First-year students’ readiness for large-scale ‘flipped lectures’—what (de)motivates them?

Higher Education - The flipped classroom is proposed as an answer to challenges in higher education. However, studies that explore its influence on first-year student motivation are largely...     

Before studying in the humanities,what do students need?

What enables success for students studying in the humanities can be a contested space; dependent not only on the view taken on the content and purpose of specific subjects, but also on the nature of teaching and learning. This paper examines the process of redeveloping an elective unit in a Tertiary Enabling Programme to prepare students for study in undergraduate humanities areas. The research involved consulting with academics from different disciplines in a regional university and analysing their views on what enhances student success. These discussions are reviewed in light of literature on best practice in teaching and learning for foundation and first-year university students, particularly exploring Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of extending ‘cultural capital’ while expanding ‘habitus’ to emerge confidently into the field of academic life. We conclude that fostering students’ awareness of personal perspective on historical and contemporary events, alongside encouraging awareness of the constructed nature of meaning in particular events is central to developing the kind of thinking valued by lecturers in humanities subjects.     

Do university students,alumni, educators and employers link assessment and graduate employability?

Within higher education literature, assessment and graduate employability are linked and co-presented, in that quality student assessment is purported to enhance employability. This research was designed to query the extent to which these same conceptual links are perceived by those actively involved in higher education. Four stakeholder groups from multiple disciplines and eight Australian states and territories (students, alumni, educators and employers) were interviewed about graduate employability (n?=?127). Interviewers intentionally omitted any mention of assessment to determine whether the various stakeholders would bring it up themselves when asked questions such as what is and is not effective for nurturing employability. The results indicated that among the educators, assessment emerged as a dominant theme. While the three other stakeholder groups infrequently used the term assessment, they did discuss related educational concepts and practices in the context of enhanced employability. All stakeholder groups identified a missing link between theory and practice, with educators specifying that link as assessment. Recommendations to improve employability through assessment are the key takeaways from this research.     

Teaching development for doctoral students: what can we learn from activity theory?

This paper explores issues relating to programmes for doctoral students wishing to gain experience of, and develop skills in, teaching. The focus is on “Developing Learning and Teaching” – a new provision at the University of Oxford. The purpose is to exemplify how activity theory can be used to situate particular programmes and individual experiences in a wider systemic setting. The authors explain the concepts of the activity system, and use these to identify systemic tensions (analysing university‐wide survey data), then to assess whether the provision has addressed these tensions (analysing data from interviews with participants).

Cet article explore les questions soulevées par les programmes destinés aux doctorants intéressés à acquérir une expérience d’enseignement et à développer leurs compétences d’enseignement. Le centre d’intérêt est placé sur ? «Developing Learning and Teaching» ? – un nouveau cours offert à l’université d’Oxford. L’objectif est de démontrer comment la théorie de l’activité peut être utilisée de façon à situer des programmes spécifiques et des expériences individuelles dans un contexte systémique plus vaste. Nous expliquons les concepts du système d’activité et utilisons ceux‐ci de façon à identifier des tensions systémiques (par l’analyse de données recueillies par questionnaire à la grandeur de l’université), puis évaluons si le cours cible ces tensions (par l’analyse de données recueillies par entretien auprès des participants).     

The academic achievement of students in a New Zealand university: Does it pay to work?

There is growing concern about the detrimental effect of term-time employment on university students’ academic success. We report results from an online survey of 1837 students of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, whose responses were later matched to their academic records for a semester. The majority of employed students reported working out of financial necessity. There was no difference in grades between employed and non-employed students, but hours worked had a direct negative linear effect on the grades of employed students. Subsequent analysis suggested that employed students might have had significantly higher grades than the non-employed subsample if they had not worked. Mediating and moderating effects on the relationship between hours worked and academic performance were identified, and a model of the work–achievement relationship developed. Universities could do more to accommodate the reality of part-time work by their students.     

To what extent does Hong Kong primary school students’ Chinese reading comprehension benefit from after-school private tuition?

The reading attainment of the 3,875 primary 4 Hong Kong primary school students participating in the 2011 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study ranked first among 49 countries and regions surveyed worldwide. Analysis of the association between (a) participating students’ reading attainment and (b) responses to questionnaires completed by the students and their parents revealed that classroom teaching, the school curriculum, the reader’s social and economic background and support from home had all helped shape reading performance. It is not unusual for school students in many Asian countries to receive after-school tuition in various areas of the curriculum to boost performance in impending examinations. The study reported here focussed (1) on the Chinese language reading attainment of students who had attended private tutoring classes after school in this subject against the scores of fellow students who had not and (2) asking whether such after-school tutoring had been of any notable benefit to their reading. Although a majority of the parents questioned said they paid for extra tuition for their children after school, analyses of the data found there was a statistically significant difference between the scores of students who received extra tuition and those who did not, the score of the latter group being superior. It is suggested that the Hong Kong education authorities reassure parents about the quality of teaching in primary schools and publicly pronounce on the potential value of after-school private tutoring.     

What if we could imagine the ideal faculty? Proposals for improvement by university students with disabilities

This article presents the partial results of a broader research project entitled, “University Barriers and Aids Identified by Students with Disabilities”, which is currently underway at a Spanish University. The general aim is to analyze the role of faculty in inclusive education of students with disabilities, and more specifically, proposals for improvement made by these students. A biographic-narrative methodology was used to collect data. The study concludes that faculty must show a positive attitude toward disability, promote inclusive practices using alternative methodologies, make curriculum adaptations, use new technologies and be trained in attending the needs derived from disabilities.     

‘They want more of everything’: what university middle managers’ attitudes reveal about support for off-campus doctoral students

Advances in technology and a shifting demographic of post-graduate students have resulted in a larger than ever number of off-campus PhD students. These students tend to be less satisfied than their on-campus counterparts with their candidature experience. Improving the current situation requires effort from multiple university stakeholders, including academic middle managers, who play a role in allocating resources and setting research training agenda. However, with the intensification of academic workload, academic managers might not view the support of off-campus PhD students as a high priority. This study investigates the attitudes of middle managers in a large Australian university concerning the provision of training and support to off-campus PhD students. The findings reveal that a complex interplay of discourses hinder the provision of support to off-campus PhD students. Implications for practice are discussed.     

The pursuit of excellence or the search for intimacy? The forced‐choice dilemma of gifted youth

Educators often fail to recognize that the intellectually gifted differ from their age peers in their social and emotional development as much as in their intellectual and academic characteristics. A dilemma peculiar to gifted youth arises through the interaction of the psychosocial drives towards intimacy and achievement, which complement each other in students of average ability, but which place the gifted student in a forced‐choice situation. If the gifted child chooses to satisfy the drive for excellence he or she must risk forfeiting the attainment of intimacy with age peers; if the choice is intimacy, the gifted may be forced into a pattern of systematic and deliberate underachievement to retain membership in the social group. Homogeneous grouping of gifted students is suggested as a partial solution to this dilemma.     

The role of working memory in spatial text processing: What benefit of imagery strategy and visuospatial abilities?

This study investigated the construction of a spatial model in relation to working memory (WM) and visuospatial abilities. Participants were trained to use either imagery or verbal strategies to process route spatial texts. Results obtained on a free recall task, a verification test and a graphic representation task showed the beneficial effect of using a strategy based on mental images. When imagery strategies were used, a concurrent articulatory task produced interference effects on recall performance, and a spatial tapping task also impaired performance as compared to the control condition. These interference effects suggest that both visuospatial and verbal WM were involved in construction of the spatial model. When repetition strategies were used, however, only the articulatory task produced interference effects, highlighting the role of the verbal WM. To elucidate how the involvement of the visuospatial component may differ in relation to visuospatial abilities, participants with good or poor ability in generation of visual images and spatial manipulation of objects were compared. The benefit of the imagery strategy was found in both groups, but whereas low-visuospatial imagery participants were sensitive to spatial interference, their high ability counterparts were not. These results question the role of imagery processes in the construction of spatial models and their relation to the visuospatial WM.