Academic momentum from school to university · ICGS Research Library

Title

Academic momentum from school to university

Description

Academic momentum - whether or not tertiary degrees are completed - is influenced by three factors: academic course load, the background and socioeconomic status of the student (including high-school attainment), and “value-adding activities” such as time off between high school and university (Martin, Wilson, Liem & Ginns, 2013, p. 641). This study examined the role of “various indicators of prior learning, achievement, and experience (high school achievement, university achievement, deferment experience, mature age experience) in university/college students’ academic achievement over the first four semesters of their undergraduate studies”. A sample of 904 students from an Australian university participated in the longitudinal study.

Effects of prior and ongoing achievement
The researchers found that “high school achievement and ongoing university achievement predicted subsequent achievement through university. However, the impact of high school achievement diminished, while additive effects of ongoing university achievement continued” (Martin et al., p. 640). These findings suggest that achievement through university is a self-determined factor “with continued investment in one’s studies yielding increasing and additive benefits beyond achievement at high school” (p. 664). The student therefore “builds on his/her prior experience, connecting prior learning and achievement with subsequent learning and achievement” (p. 664).

Of particular note to school educators is the fact that these findings also suggest “high achieving school leavers are not guaranteed academic success at university, and so they and their educators must be vigilant to performance declines early in university and problematic transitions from high school to university” (p. 664).

Deferred entry students
Deferred entry to university also predicted achievement through university (p. 640). Time spent in a ‘gap year’, or the year after secondary school completion may provide students with experiences and prior-knowledge to support “the self-regulated learning required at university level” (p. 665). Again, these findings are of interest to secondary school educators and counsellors, as some may currently hold the view that deferment “is a distraction from an important linear transition from high school to university/college” (p. 665).

Martin et al. suggest that the types of activities conducted in a gap year are important, as “different deferment activities will yield different impacts” (p. 666). Looking at the range of studies “for and against deferred entry, it is evident that some activities may lead to academic success and other activities may impede success” (p. 665). However, extra-curricular experiences such as the gap year can be a “form of momentum that facilitates university performance” (p. 666).

Another interesting finding was that the period of deferment is also salient; mature age “experience did not yield significantly positive effects on achievement” (p. 666). Academic momentum can be impeded by periods of more than one or two years of deferment, which perhaps “represents too great a disconnect between the life course and formal education” (p. 666).

Conclusions
Summarising all these findings, Martin et al. suggest that “university achievement is more dominant than high school achievement on subsequent university achievement—and deferment experience is more dominant than mature age experience on subsequent university achievement. In both cases, the more proximal and local sources of educational influence predominate” (p. 666). Overall, high school achievement and “ongoing university achievement predict subsequent achievement through university— but the impact of high school achievement diminishes while the additive and potentially self-determining effects of ongoing university achievement on subsequent achievement are evident” (p. 669). It was also clear that deferment experience “positively predicts achievement through university” (p. 669).

Research abstract prepared by Kate Broadley, Alliance Researcher

Martin, A., Wilson, R., Liem, G., & Ginns, P. (2013). Academic momentum at university/college: Exploring the roles of prior learning, life experience, and ongoing performance in academic achievement across time. The Journal of Higher Education, 84 (5), 640- 674.