'I thought I knew this stuff but apparently I don't': understanding the transition into university-level thinking

There is much that students need to adjust to as they enter undergraduate study, whether as matriculating school students or as mature-age returners. Amongst the myriad of adjustment demands are those associated with the level of thinking required for university study. In this chapter we address issues surrounding the intellectual transition required of students as they enter and undertake a first year of university-level study. Issues of transition are well researched in many respects, including understandings of the broad socio-cultural demands of university study (Kantanis 2000; Wingate 2006) as well as accounts of the underlying study skills associated with academic achievement (Entwistle and McCune 2004). Krause (2005), for example, identified a number of characteristics of students most likely to consider dropping out of study, including: low socio-economic background; low achievement and unrealistic expectations; feeling overwhelmed by all they have to do at university; difficulty understanding course material; discomfort in group discussion contexts such as small group tutorials; not being self-regulated learners; poor time management skills; lacking a sense of belonging to a community; and difficulty in adjusting to the university style of teaching. However, less attention has been given to the deeper intellectual demands typically associated with university-level learning, which require of the student a capacity to engage in more complex and abstract thinking than that expected in other educational settings (see Cantwell and Scevak 2004; Cantwell 2007). It is this aspect of transition, and its antecedent in the underlying self-regulatory skills, that is the focus of this chapter