Study Competent? The Link between Havo and HBO: Study Skills from the Student’s Perspective

Abstract

The majority of students coming to HBO (higher professional education) come from secondary school on Havo-level (senior general secondary education). In teaching and supervising first year HBO students, it becomes evident that, besides not having thought about their choice of programme and not feeling as much affinity with the subject as expected, especially study skills lead to problems in successfully completing the first year. Because Havo is the most logical educational background for HBO students, we wanted to investigate whether our own experiences with teaching and supervising first year students match the perception of those first year students who have just finished their Havo education, concerning study skills. We want to analyse whether students perceive the link between Havo and HBO to be an effective one when it comes to study skills: do they feel that they have been prepared sufficiently at Havo for the study skills they need at HBO? Our research question was thus: Do pupils and students perceive their study skills to be have been adequately acquired in secondary school to the degree that they are able to confidently follow the courses in the first year of their HBO programme? In order to answer this research question, we focused on specific study skills that are needed at HBO: planning, self-regulated learning and group work.