Leaving Cert pupils feel unprepared for university studies
STUDENTS feel the Leaving Cert is failing to adequately prepare them for third-level education.
A survey of 304 first-year students in DCU revealed that only a quarter of them (25%) felt the Leaving prepared them well enough to interrogate and critically evaluate information or ideas.
Identifying sources of information and exploring and developing ideas were also areas in which students felt they lacked necessary experience.
Speaking about the findings, Professor Michael O’Leary, director of the Centre for Assessment Research Policy and Practice (CARPE) at the Institute of Education in DCU, said that the results suggest a ‘worrying disconnect and, consequently, challenging transition between second and third-level education’.
‘All 300-plus participants in this study sat their Leaving Cert last year and were surveyed towards the end of their first year in university – so their experiences of the Leaving Cert and its relevance to their first-year studies were all very much fresh in their minds,’ said Prof O’Leary.
‘These perceptions are current, informed and require both attention and action, especially in the context of the upcoming review of the Senior Cycle by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.’
A total of 304 first-year DCU students, from a range of business, education, engineering, computing, humanities, social science, science and health programmes, were surveyed in April and May of this year.
The findings revealed that just 39% felt the Leaving Cert had prepared them to think independently, only a third felt they could be open minded, and a little over a quarter (27%) said they could compare information from different sources.
Also, just under a quarter (24%) said they knew how to use technology to improve their learning, while only 30% said they could explore ideas from a number of different perspectives
One student said they found it ‘challenging and overwhelming at first to evaluate and analyse situations, scenarios, visual and textual data’. Another said: ‘Third level requires you to apply yourself much more in terms of thinking and explaining your opinions and answers.’
And another student said: ‘I was unprepared with regards to researching and citing sources.’
A spokesperson for the Teachers’ Union of Ireland said that the recent changes to the Junior Cycle and the forthcoming review of the Senior Cycle programme ‘will lead to a greater congruence between post-primary and thirdlevel study methodologies’.
On a positive note, the survey found that a large majority of respondents felt the Leaving Cert taught them to persist when learning is difficult, be well organised, be disciplined, manage their time, and cope with the pressure of heavy workload requirements.
‘Challenging and overwhelming’