A detailed review of the education sector in Australia as in the data provided by the 2006 edition of the OECD's annual publication, 'Education at a Glance' is presented. While the data has shown that in almost all OECD countries educational attainment levels are on the rise, with countries showing impressive gains in university qualifications, it also reveals that a large of share of young people still do not complete secondary school, which remains a baseline for successful entry into the labour market.

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Education at a Glance

Transition into higher education (HE) has received increased interest in recent years, since it represents a challenging period for students. The aim of this study was to further understand the associations between self-efficacy, academic achievements, and regulation in first-year university students during their transition into HE. The convenience sample consisted of 374 first-year university students (230 females, 61.5%), aged from 18 to 33 (M = 19.86, SD = 1.51) and recruited from an Italian university. Self-efficacy was assessed using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire; regulation strategies were assessed with the Inventory of Learning Patterns of Students; and a self-reported grade point average was taken as an indicator of each student's academic performance. Result shows that students' self-efficacy was positively associated with self-regulation and negatively associated with a lack of regulation. Students with higher self-efficacy and self-regulation strategies had better academic performance. Female students performed better in academic activities and adopted more external regulation strategies. The findings represent an opportunity for university institutions to consider the interventions they provide to first-year students in order to facilitate the successful transition from secondary school; they also provide researchers with further knowledge about the effect of self-efficacy, and regulation strategies on students' adjustment to HE. Le transizioni scolastiche hanno ricevuto un crescente interesse negli ultimi anni, poiché rappresenta un periodo delicato e impegnativo per gli studenti. Lo scopo di questo studio è stato quello di comprendere le associazioni tra autoefficacia, risultati accademici e regolazione negli studenti universitari del primo anno durante la loro transizione all'Università. Il campione di convenienza consisteva in 374 studenti universitari del primo anno (230 femmine, 61,5%), di età compresa tra i 18 e i 33 anni (M = 19,86, SD = 1,51). I risultati mostrano come l'autoefficacia degli studenti era positivamente associata all'autoregolazione e negativamente associata alla mancanza di regolazione. Gli studenti con maggiore autoefficacia e strategie di autoregolazione hanno avuto migliori prestazioni accademiche. Le studentesse si sono comportate meglio nelle attività accademiche e hanno adottato più strategie di regolazione esterna. I risultati rappresentano un'opportunità per le istituzioni universitarie di considerare gli interventi a supporto degli studenti del primo anno al fine di facilitare la transizione. Author's declare no conflict of interest. The data that support this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. 

Students' transition into higher education: The role of self‐efficacy, regulation strategies, and academic achievements

This discussion addresses the methodological approaches used in the special issue on student transitions and diversity. We provide an overview of how the different papers contribute to methodological development in the field, in particular by their use of advanced multi-factor analyses and accounting for diversity in student transitions at several levels. The discussion touches upon challenges concerning (a) the distinction of analytical levels, (b) different conceptualisations and operationalisations of diversity and (c) the types of data collection methodologies. We conclude by discussing future steps to widen the methodological lens in transition research.

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Widening the Methodological Lens on the Investigation of Diversity in the Transition to Higher Education: A Discussion

The transition into higher education (HE) is a particularly challenging process for students due to a large variety of difficulties and requirements. Moreover, increasing student numbers and diversity in European HE have complexified the issue of the successful transition to university. Consequently, it is important to further develop our understanding of the heterogeneity of students and the specific challenges that impact their successful and less stressful transitions into higher education. This paper contributes to this scientific endeavour. More precisely, a study was carried out among 1,048 first-year students from a French-speaking Belgian university . Using latent profile analysis, our results yielded five profiles representing different combinations of achievement predictors (high school grade, socio-economic status, informed-choice, and self-efficacy beliefs). When comparing the profiles, our results further highlighted key differences in the way students experienced the specific challenges associated with the transition and succeeded at the end of the first year. The discussion of the results allowed us to provide practical implications and future perspectives on the thorny issue of diversity into the transition to HE. 

Fair enough?! Investigating the specific challenges of diverse university first-year students

Apart from the current Covid19 context, the higher education sectors across the world have been faced with major challenges over the last few decades (Auerbach et al., 2018; Haggis, 2004), including increased numbers and diversity. Considering the many challenges in higher education, especially the rise of students’ mental health issues, I am strongly convinced that education sectors, but in particular the higher education sector, have a societal responsibility to not just focus on students as learners of knowledge and/or professional skills, but to support them in being developed as “whole students”. All these challenges also raise a need for research into the broader context to identify how we can better support the diverse student population as they transition into higher education, but also how to prepare them for a positive experience during and beyond their time in higher education.
Overall, it can be said that the contributions to this special issue beneficially addressed some of the main foci to widening the perspectives on diversity related to the transition into higher education. The contribution came from different European countries, including Belgium, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
De Clercq et al. (in this special issue) indicated that environmental characteristics, such as distinctiveness of countries, is often overlooked in research. In this discussion article, therefore, some particular references will also be made to a specific country, New Zealand. This may be of interest and relevant for the particular questions raised in this special issue as focusing on student diversity in educational contexts has been considered important for some time in this country. Aoteraroa New Zealand is a country in the South Pacific colonised by Europeans in the 19th century. In the second part of the 20th century, the focus across the New Zealand education sectors, including higher education, started to develop beyond just a European perspective, and started to focus more on recognition of student diversity. Initially, the main focus was on the indigenous population, the Māori people. In the last few decades of the 20th century, the focus was extended to the Pacific Island people, many of whom migrated to New Zealand from a wide range of different islands in the South Pacific. In the 21st century, the focus on Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) groups was further extended, and over the last decade also because of the increase of refugees from the Middle East and Asia. Providing some insights from the other end of the world, in quite a different and de-colonised ex-European nation may help European (and other) countries to reflect on their own approaches.

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Discussion to the special issue: Supporting the transition of a diversity of students: Developing the “whole student” during and beyond their time at higher education.

In the light of growing university entry rates, higher education institutions not only serve larger numbers of students, but also seek to meet first-year students’ ever more diverse needs. Yet to inform universities how to support the transition to higher education, research only offers limited insights. Current studies tend to either focus on the individual factors that affect student success or they highlight students’ social background and their educational biography in order to examine the achievement of selected, non-traditional groups of students. Both lines of research appear to lack integration and often fail to take organisational diversity into account, such as different types of higher education institutions or degree programmes. For a more comprehensive understanding of student diversity, the present study includes individual, social and organisational factors. To gain insights into their role for the transition to higher education, we examine how the different factors affect the students’ perception of the formal and informal requirements of the first year as more or less difficult to cope with. As the perceived requirements result from both the characteristics of the students and the institutional context, they allow to investigate transition at the interface of the micro and the meso level of higher education. Latent profile analyses revealed that there are no profiles with complex patterns of perception of the first-year requirements, but the identified groups rather differ in the overall level of perceived challenges. Moreover, SEM indicates that the differences in the perception largely depend on the individual factors self-efficacy and volition.

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How Different Diversity Factors Affect the Perception of First-Year Requirements in Higher Education

Das interdisziplinare Verbundprojekt Videobasiertes Lernen durch Forschung zur Nachhaltigkeit: Student Crowd Research (SCoRe) verbindet als Design-Based Research (DBR)-Projekt das bildungspraktische Ziel der Entwicklung einer Online-Plattform fur forschendes Lernen mit der Suche nach Erkenntnis. Uber die Plattform sollen Studierende dabei unterstutzt werden, kollaborativ in der Grosgruppe und unter Einsatz von Video als Forschungswerkzeug eigene Forschungsprojekte zu Fragen der Nachhaltigkeit durchzufuhren. Der Beitrag widmet sich zum einen dem Design und Re-Design eines spezifischen Prozessmodells fur forschendes Lernen und zum anderen der Exploration des neuen Konzepts „Forschendes Sehen“. Am Beispiel konzeptioneller Uberlegungen, der Gestaltung des ersten Prozessmodells mit sechs Forschungsphasen sowie des Re-Designs zum zweiten Modell mit vier Phasen zeigen wir das iterative Vorgehen, das fur DBR typisch ist, erlautern Zusammenhange zwischen Theoriearbeit, Gestaltung und Evaluation und arbeiten so die dem Projekt zugrunde liegenden Neugestaltungen auf mehreren, voneinander abhangigen Ebenen heraus.

Studentische Forschung im digitalen Raum: Ein Re-Design auf verschiedenen Gestaltungsebenen

Forschendes Lernen ist dazu geeignet, epistemische Neugier – definiert als Freude an neuen Erkenntnissen - anzuregen und zu befriedigen. Neben der Selbstwirksamkeit zeigt sich die Neugier als relevant fur den Studienerfolg. Allerdings ist bisher nicht geklart, in welcher Beziehung diese beiden Konstrukte zueinanderstehen.

Vanessa K. Jänsch

Papers

How Different Diversity Factors Affect the Perception of First-Year Requirements in Higher Education

Studentische Forschung im digitalen Raum: Ein Re-Design auf verschiedenen Gestaltungsebenen

Forschendes Lernen und Studienerfolg: Die Bedeutung epistemischer Neugier