‘It all just clicked’: a longitudinal perspective on transitions within university

Abstract

This paper explores the transitions that a group of students, admitted from further education colleges as part of broader widening access initiative at a Scottish research-intensive university, made across the lifetime of their degrees. It investigates how they negotiate their learning careers beyond the first year, and how they (re)define their approaches to independent learning as they progress to the later years of their courses. Evidence is drawn from 20 students who were interviewed during each of their three or four years of study to provide a longitudinal account of their experiences of engagement and participation at the university. We draw attention to three ways in which the students made transitions across the course of their degrees: to increased knowledge of the conventions of academic writing; to enhanced critical skills; and to practical strategies to prioritise learning.

Keywords:

• transitions
• longitudinal analysis
• engagement
• participation
• learning communities

Acknowledgements

Our thanks are due to the two referees for their detailed and thoughtful reading of this paper.