Bridging the gap between school and college: evidence from the University of Leicester 1978–82

Abstract

It has long been recognised that students enter higher education lacking some of the essential elements of geographical knowledge and understanding. In a systematic investigation of these factors, a survey of five years of Leicester University geography freshers shows them to have good factual knowledge, but alarmingly low levels of understanding. It further suggests that A level grade is a poor predictor of performance in higher education and confirms suspicions of grave deficiences in the grasp of quantitative methods. The paper concludes by suggesting ways in which these problems might be tackled without resorting to undesirable repetition in first‐year college and university courses.