SECTION I DOCUMENTATION AND A QUANTITATIVE MEASURE OF THE EXTENT AND SCOPE OF TRANSITION PROBLEMS IN THE FIRST YEAR OF STUDY OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Chapter 2. Introduction

The national study, First Year on Campus (McInnis and James 1995), which provided some of the data for this report, was commissioned by the Committee for the Advancement of University Teaching (CAUT) to document the initial experience of on-campus undergraduate commencers with a view to improving teaching and learning. Although the study was not specifically focused only on school leavers, or on transition and retention issues, the survey questionnaire responses provided ample data for further analysis to inform the present study.

The national study concluded that while some students found the transition to university a challenging hurdle, for others it was an intimidating gulf. Most students expected and enjoyed the opportunity for independence in contrast to their school experience. For school leavers, the contrasts between school and university were greater than we expected in some respects. Most first year students were sure however of their reasons for attending university, and had a strong desire to do well. On the whole, they had clear aims, and a strong sense of purpose. The overwhelming majority attached a good deal of importance to studying in fields in which they had an intrinsic interest. They balanced personal growth against vocational goals. A sense of identity as a university student, a feeling of integration with the university, and a commitment to achieving well, were still very much in evidence amongst first year students.

There is concern, however, that there may be substantial number of students who enter higher education without high expectations, and whose lives and outlooks may be largely untouched by the experience. We are not referring especially to students from identified access and equity groups, individuals who experience personal difficulties in the first year, or students who discontinue. The latter group. s numbers represent a more visible, but perhaps less problematic indicator of a lack of integration and commitment. Those who withdraw may well have shown signs of independence that some continuing students lack.

First Year On Campus revealed a large proportion of students who were not particularly connected, socially or academically, to the university. For some students the relationship with the university and peers was fleeting. from car park to lecture theatre and home again. while others were transformed by their immersion in university life. A critical divide between students in the future may well be the extent to which their learning is a social experience centred on the university campus.

Most first year students make a successful transition. We concluded from the 1994 data however that school leavers were relatively less certain of their roles than older students, less diligent in their study habits, and less academically oriented. Overall, they were a . particularly problematic group of first year students across the system. (McInnis and James 1995:xi).

The transition from school to university is influenced by a complex array of factors that defy simple analysis. The possibility of predicting which students will have a successful transition is limited. What is feasible, however, is to identify the major variables in the transition process over which the university has influence and for which it can be considered primarily responsible.

The aim of this component of the transition performance study was to provide an analysis of the 1994 survey data of the sub-group of school leavers concerning:

• the nature and extent of their school to university transition problems;
• initial experience relative to other factors; and
• the variations in transition problems across a range of university contexts and student characteristics shaping initial experiences.

The analysis also sought to identify aspects of the transition experience likely to have sustaining effects in subsequent years of undergraduate study. This was possible because respondents to the 1994 survey had been surveyed again in 1995, during their second year, allowing direct comparison of student perceptions of their university experience in the first and second years of their undergraduate degrees.

In conjunction with the other components of the study, the overall aim of the analysis of the data set was to identify key performance indicators that can be addressed by universities to improve and enhance the school to university transition process for students.

When the national study commenced there were around 34000 first year students in the seven universities that were used for case study analysis. We elected to sample 20 per cent of this group, a sample of the order of 6800 students. To get representation across institutions and fields of study we raised the total number of students for the initial mailout from the projected 6800 to 7122 students. Two mailouts were used to obtain 4028 returns, a response rate of 57 per cent of useable returns (details are provided in Appendix B of McInnis and James 1995).

Of the nation. s undergraduate commencers in 1994, 54 per cent were aged 19 years or under and 56 per cent were female. These figures include first time students and students who may have attended university previously but were commencing new undergraduate studies. On these broad measures, our sample of first-timers differed somewhat from the national population. Of the 4028 first year students who responded, 71 per cent were students aged 19 years or younger and 63 per cent were female.

The total sample of 4661 first year students for the analysis in this current report included an additional institution surveyed at the same time but not used for the 1994 report since we were matching surveys with institutional case studies. Of the 4661 respondents, 3026 (65 per cent) were school leavers, of whom 63 per cent were female. Ninety-eight per cent were enrolled full-time.

All students who responded to the 1994 survey were invited to participate in a longitudinal study of their university experience in subsequent years. Over 1000 students agreed to do so. This sub-sample of students was surveyed at the completion of their second year of university in 1995 and again in 1996. Seven hundred and sixteen students responded to the 1995 survey.

In the second year of the longitudinal study the profile of the now smaller sub-sample had altered slightly. Of the 1995 respondents, 71 per cent were female (cf. 63 per cent the year before) and 68 per cent were aged 20 years or younger (cf. 71 per cent). Ten per cent of the sub-sample had changed their enrolment load of the previous year, but overall the sub-sample remained comprised mainly of full-time students.

For the purposes of this report the analysis of this longitudinal dataset is restricted to a comparison of the 1994 and 1995 responses of students who were school leavers commencing university in 1994. From the 716 respondents to the 1995 survey, the relevant sub-sample was comprised of 481 respondents.

We developed a working model of the major variables (see Fig 1 below) based largely on theories of transition and assumptions underlying the design of the First Year Experience Questionnaire (FYEQ) which in turn was derived from a review of the Australian and international literature, and on previous research (McInnis 1992).

In addition to information on student backgrounds and their current educational context, the FYEQ contained items on the reasons for students enrolling, comparisons between teaching and standards at school and university and perceptions of family support. Thirty-one items from the FYEQ related specifically to student adjustment, including their goals, expectations, and perceptions of the academic and social aspects of university life. These were used to create four scales derived from factor analysis.

Twenty-one items on the questionnaire related to students. perceptions of various aspects of their courses. These were used to create three scales after factor analysis. We selected items from the scales for further analysis in this present study that could be readily recognised as central to the issues of transition from school to university.

Figure 1: Overview of Variables Influencing Transition

The survey in late 1995 for the longitudinal study used a questionnaire slightly smaller in length but otherwise similar in most respects to the First Year Experience Questionnaire (FYEQ). The second year survey included questions to trace the changing patterns of student enrolment, including whether or not students had changed course, changed institution, or perhaps repeated first year. Additional Likert-scale items were incorporated that invited students to make comparisons between first and second year, and to reflect on their perceptions of university life in second year in the light of their feelings the year before. The section in the 1994 questionnaire pertaining to the school-university transition was no longer relevant and was removed.

The responses of school leavers were analysed on items identified as especially relevant to transition and retention. The elements in Figure 1 indicate the major areas of interest in the analysis of the school leaver data. While it is difficult to identify clear causal relationships statistically, it is helpful to tease out the major elements associated with positive and negative transitions that make conceptual sense. There is of course considerable overlap across these categories but in an attempt to provide some indication of the relative importance for universities in establishing priorities we have grouped the variables into three broad types.

Category A incorporates student background, entry characteristics and the course context. These variables are not directly within the control of the universities, though clearly selection policies and practices can play a part in shaping the composition of students with particular background and entry characteristics. Category B, university structures and processes, includes those variables such as the timetable and assigned tasks over which the universities have considerable control and students have limited influence. Again, this distinction is not strictly robust—for instance, students can contribute to workload problems if they spend large amounts of their available time in paid employment. Finally, the Category C variables concern the dimensions of satisfaction that we identified in the initial factor analysis involving the whole 1994 sample. These represent the major sources of student satisfaction and dissatisfaction at a global level of judgement.

To examine dimensions of satisfaction, we identified students as ‘dissatisfied’ with their university experience if they responded negatively to either or both the items: ‘Overall, I am very satisfied with my university experience so far’ and, ‘Overall, I am really enjoying my course’. All other students were classified as ‘satisfied’.

Further indication of a negative transition was given by those students who considered deferring for academic reasons by answering that they disliked studying, disliked the course, or wanted to change course. From our analysis of the key variables indicating positive or negative transitions, student satisfaction statistically subsumed the major student variables of commitment to study and level of application (‘I worked consistently’), integration (‘I really like being a university student’), and academic adjustment (‘I had difficulty adjusting to the university style of teaching’).

We also examined the responses of the sub-sample of school leavers who seriously considered deferring for academic reasons at some point in their first semester. It is important to emphasise that these students had not actually deferred. We defined this sub-sample by a positive response to any or all the items: ‘I disliked studying’, ‘I disliked the course’ and ‘I wanted to change course’.

Factor analysis was used to further analyse the data (see Tables 1 and 2). Since the analysis included only school leavers we were able to add items concerning school-university comparisons and family background that were not in the original factor analysis. This produced a new scale, ‘family support’ and influenced the loadings of other items. From items in the FYEQ a rotated factor matrix (see Appendix 1) was achieved by factor analysis and seven scales were produced:

• perceptions of teaching quality (eg. ‘The staff make a real effort to understand difficulties students may be having with their work’);
• academic challenge and stimulation (eg. ‘I am finding my course intellectually stimulating’);
• sense of belonging (eg. ‘I really like being a university student’);
• sense of purpose (eg. ‘I know the type of occupation I want’);
• workload (eg. ‘My course workload is too heavy’);
• family support (eg. ‘Often discuss my university work with family’); and
• commitment and involvement (eg. ‘I worked consistently through first semester’).

The data for this report are essentially about the transition process for those students—mostly full-time—who were still enrolled by the end of the first semester of the first year. We are unable to provide direct evidence on factors leading to actual student discontinuation since we did not survey students who had left university by this stage. Nevertheless, we do have strong indications from those who seriously considered leaving in the early stages of transition about their uncertainties and misgivings. While we have been able to track a reasonable sub-sample into second year the reduction in the size of sub-groups limits the analysis in some respects although on the whole the data are still of considerable interest.

A second limitation concerns the extent to which it is possible to identify predictors of positive and negative transition. Not surprisingly, a neat formula for successful transition does not appear to exist. For example, not all students who made a positive transition believed that staff took an interest in their progress. With this proviso, we do attempt to provide some assessment of the relative importance of the factors that influence the transition of school leavers on the basis of the data.