Articulation Process from Secondary to Higher Education

Abstract

The present study seeks to develop a psychoeducational articulation model for the transition from secondary school to university. To this end, in a first stage, more than forty (40) variables related to school performance in the transition to higher education were identified. The variables found were divided into three large domains: (1) exploration of cognitive functions, (2) status of generic competences at the beginning of the university process and identification of the professional vocation, and finally (3) professional expectations and interests. In a second moment, for the exploration domain of cognitive functions (1), three of these variables that were selected have a significant impact on adaptation to higher education, namely, study methods and techniques, memory attention, and reading comprehension. With the choice of these three, validated instruments were identified to measure these cognitive variables and they were applied to a group of tenth grade students from the Liceo de la Universidad Católica de Colombia. With the results, it is suggested to continue investigating other variables identified with the objective/goal that the development of the articulation model could be able to achieve a better improvement of the fundamental elements of adaptation from secondary school to university education. Thus, be able to impact on the decrease in dropout at this stage, such as: learning skills, autonomy, decision-making, study techniques and academic performance, among others.