Catching them before they fall: a Vygotskian approach to transitioning students from high school to university

ABSTRACT

University enabling programs, worldwide, generally target high school students who excel at school, or post-secondary students who have underperformed in their university entry examinations. Murdoch University provides an access program for Year/Grade 12 students who are not on a university pathway during their final year of high school. This intervention engages students at a transitional stage of cognitive development to: (a) determine their readiness to move to the next level of their cognitive thinking; (b) facilitate that process through collaborative learning; (c) support and nurture university aspirations and (d) provide a direct transition pathway from secondary to higher education. The influence of Vygotsky's zones of proximal development in the context of this program is discussed, and by comparing the performance of these students in their first year of university with other domestic-entry students, we argue that this enabling program prepares them for successful transition into higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Access
• enabling programs
• first-year experience
• Vygotsky
• zone of proximal development

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr Laura Perry, Larson Lee and the MAP4U research team at MU for their advice and contribution to the data collection and preliminary analysis. Our deep felt appreciation also goes to the late Dr Marian Kemp who, together with Dr Janean Robinson, was inspirational in establishing TLC. Gratitude is also extended to Dr Jane Pearce and Elizabeth Moore who pioneered an earlier enabling program from which TLC was conceived.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.