Abstract
To date, little understanding exists of how first-year students in professionally oriented higher-education (HE) programs (i.e., those that provide vocational education to prepare students for a particular occupation) experience their academic transition process. In the present study, we first argued how the constructs of academic adjustment and academic integration can provide complementary perspectives on the academic transition of first-year students in (professional) HE. Next, we examined what first-year students in professional HE contexts perceive to be the most important experiences associated with their academic transition process in the first semester of their first year of higher education (FYHE). To this end, we adopted the fundamentals of the critical incident technique and asked 104 students in a Flemish (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) university college (which offers professional HE programs, such as nursing) to complete “reflective logs” with open questions at the start of the second semester of their FYHE, wherein they reflected on three critical academic experiences during their first semester. An inductive, cross-case content analysis of the collected narratives showed that students reported on nine themes of academic experiences, which relate to five adjustment themes (dealing with the organization of the study program, organizing study work, committing to the study, following class and taking notes, and processing learning content outside class) and four integration themes (feeling competent, feeling stressed, feeling prepared, and feeling supported). Further analyses showed that although some of the nine themes of academic experiences appear to be more important at different times in the first semester, they all seem to be meaningful throughout the whole semester.
Highlights
The transition of students from high school to their first year of higher education (FYHE) has received extensive research attention, as it is generally recognized that the first-year student experience impacts important student outcomes, such as academic success and well-being (Bowman, 2010; Gale and Parker, 2014)
Inspired by the work of Trautwein and Bosse (2017), we adopted the fundamentals of the critical incident technique (CIT) for our data collection
With the aim of eliciting critical incidents from a large number of students, we developed a paper-and-pencil reflective log (Supplementary Appendix B), which the respondents completed at the beginning of the second semester
Summary
The transition of students from high school to their first year of higher education (FYHE) has received extensive research attention, as it is generally recognized that the first-year student experience impacts important student outcomes, such as academic success and well-being (Bowman, 2010; Gale and Parker, 2014). Previous research has shown that a successful transition necessitates effectively navigating academic challenges, such as managing a high workload or developing new academic skills (e.g., Trautwein and Bosse, 2017) In this light, an increasing number of higher-education (HE) institutions have developed guidance and support initiatives to facilitate the first-year academic transition and enhance subsequent student outcomes (Coertjens et al, 2017; Harackiewicz and Priniski, 2018). For the development of such guidance and support initiatives, HE institution administrators rely on guidelines based on empirical research
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
