A typology of students’ enculturation during the first year at University

The first year of studying has been extensively researched in order to better understand the transition into Higher Education (HE) as well as the phenomena of student performance, retention, and drop out. Although research points to the importance of the socio-cultural dimension of first-year experiences, surprisingly little is known about the actual processes through which students integrate into the socio-cultural context of HE. To address this research gap, an interview study was conducted with 15 first-year university students. The analysis revealed distinctive transition processes into HE that were developed into a typology with four transition types.

Interestingly, students who tended to be more critically reflective about their studies were in danger of having a rougher transition than less critically reflective counterparts. For the former, it is essential to develop social relationships that tie them to their studies while the latter manage study-related challenges by simply working through them.