Variation in transition to university of life science students: exploring the role of academic and social self-efficacy

ABSTRACT

A mixed-method study was undertaken to investigate factors affecting the transition to university of life sciences students at a research-intensive UK university. Questionnaire responses (N= 234) suggested that undergraduate students tended to agree that they had successfully transitioned to university level study in the first year. However, disproportionately more female students had a definite negative view of their success and this correlated with the lower first-year performance of female BSc Biological Sciences students. Focus groups with second-year female BSc Biological Sciences students revealed that they viewed transition as a period of great academic and social change. Through the lens of a transition model developed from Bean and Eaton’s model of student retention, it was seen that both academic and social self-efficacy were important in facilitating transition, and were greatly aided by academic and social relationships with peers and academics. The timing of self-reported successful transition varied between students, with some students not transitioning academically and/or socially until the second year. Recommendations are that student academic self-efficacy should be promoted through helping students gain the necessary academic toolkit. Tutorials, peer-led sessions together with more social events could increase social self-efficacy and warrants further research.

KEYWORDS:

• Transition
• university
• self-efficacy
• life sciences
• gender

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Mrs Kate Ippolito for supervising this research. I am also very grateful to Dr Tiffany Chiu and two anonymous referees for commenting on the manuscript. Finally, a big thank you to all the students that participated in the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Magda Charalambous

Magda Charalambous is Principal Teaching Fellow in the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, currently involved in helping to redesign the departmental curriculum to move towards more active and innovative evidence-based teaching practices. Her main activities include teaching evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, and population genetics to undergraduates and postgraduates. She is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.