Towards graduation: students' views about the alternative way

Summary

In a previous issue of this journal we reported and discussed a selection of results from a larger study, based on four colleges and two institutes of higher education, which began in April 1980 and ended in August 1984 (see Gibbs and Harland, 1986). By examining such background variables as age and sex of entrants, which part of the country they came from, their secondary schooling, A‐level results, and experience of higher education among the immediate family and social class, we tried to answer the general question ‘what sort of student comes to a college or institute of higher education?’ Complementing this background material the present article examines the expectations and the experience of higher education of these same students. The article begins by outlining the results for those items from a questionnaire, completed by students when they first entered college, that dealt with applications, preferences and reasons for seeking higher education. The article moves on to consider a set of related items from a second questionnaire, completed by students in their third year, that invited them to reflect on their experience of various aspects of college life.