What Australian students say about transition to secondary school. Final report

Life Education Australia's Being Healthy Being Active project involved the collection of student voice related to the concept of school transition and the move from primary to secondary school. Students from around Australia participated in 82 focus groups, or student forums, to discuss their own positive experiences, as well as perceived needs and challenges related to their move to secondary school. Section One of this report is a literature review and environmental scan on student transition from primary to secondary school. Section Two describes the methods used to design and administer the Student Forums. This includes a description of the target population and sampling methods as well as the details of the achieved sample: 82 forums with 444 students across 15 schools. Section Three outlines the findings of the Student Forums. Section Four offers conclusions and recommendations to inform the next stage of the project, designing a suite of resources and training for teachers aimed at assisting students with the transition from primary to secondary school.

The effects of Covid-19 on student transition from school to university in STEM subjects

Covid‑19 restrictions affected most of the post‑16 learning experience of the students who will begin university courses in STEM in the UK in autumn 2021. Ongoing disruption to learning culminated in the cancellation of normal A-level examinations which were replaced with teacher assessments. Informal discussion with secondary school teaching colleagues reveals some possible consequences for the students’ transition to degree level study in STEM subjects. The main suggestion is that, despite the resilience that students have shown both academically and socially, there have been significant omissions from the normally studied curriculum that may affect their progress on degree courses in STEM including: lack of experimental practice and skills, lack of specific subject knowledge and lack of experience of assessment.

Early Clinical Experience and Mentoring of Young Dental Students—A Qualitative Study

The literature reports that student transition between preclinical and clinical dental education can be traumatic and stressful for many reasons. Early clinical experience has been reported to provide some relief. In this qualitative study, twelve final year dental students were interviewed about their perceptions and experiences with a mentee/mentor (FOAL) program in Aarhus, Denmark, to see if it (1) counteracted stress perceptions from preclinical education to the clinic, (2) inspired professionalism and a sense of study relevance, (3) helped in learning to reflect on competencies and attitudes, (4) helped with clinical social perspectives (communication/contact), (5) helped with motivation to learn and (6) helped to reaffirm one’s professional study choice. Using qualitative description methods with purposeful sampling, data from interviews were collected, transcribed, analyzed and validated with a short questionnaire. The FOAL program, today, has several benefits for mentees, including partially helping in the preclinic to clinic transition and the increased insight into mentors’ clinical tasks and communication with patients. Informants described that FOAL also contributed positively to both mentee and mentor students’ learning motivation, collaborative skills and professional attitudes. Challenges were lack of organization/planning, not enough clinical hours, lack of clinical knowledge and persistent stress levels at the clinical transition. These issues are already being considered in the curriculum reform currently in progress and are also relevant to other dental curricula internationally.

The ‘Double Transition’ for First-Year Students: Understanding the Impact of Covid-19 on South Africa’s First-Year University Students

While all students are affected by the advent of the Covid‑19 pandemic, the first‑year student population remains a special category of vulnerability for higher education. This is on account of the way the Covid‑19 pandemic has disrupted their transition into university and complicated the nature of their entry into and through the formal academic cycle. This article uses the notion of a ‘double transition’ as a framework for positioning and locating the first‑year student transition within the context of the prevailing Covid‑19 pandemic. ‘Double transition’ refers to an additional transition coupled with that of the first‑year transition, with regard to the extraordinary situation of students navigating their entry into the unfamiliar terrain of academia while simultaneously navigating the Covid‑19 pandemic. The article provides a circumscribed summary of the effects of Covid‑19 on university students and looks to describe and explain the nature and shape of first‑year transitions in relation to the transition necessitated by the Covid‑19 pandemic. It concludes with four key strategies for supporting first‑year students as the pandemic continues.

Nordic research on special needs education in upper secondary vocational education and training: A review

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse the state of the art of research on special needs education (SNE) in the context of the Nordic countries’ vocational education and training (VET) systems during the period January 2010 to September 2018. Twenty studies remained after the search procedure and thematic analysis, 15 of which deal with the practice level and five with the organisation level. No studies were identified as belonging to the policy level. The following themes were found at the practice level: teachers’ work and role, teaching and learning, student transition and student dropout. Themes identified at the organisation level were changes to vocational policy documents and educational practices, and school organisation and its implementation. Finland dominates in terms of number of studies. Furthermore, the review shows that there were few studies in the area of SNE in VET. The results show that further studies are needed to acquire more knowledge about SNE in vocational education.

Nordic research on special needs education in upper secondary vocational education and training: A review

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse the state of the art of research on special needs education (SNE) in the context of the Nordic countries’ vocational education and training (VET) systems during the period January 2010 to September 2018. Twenty studies remained after the search procedure and thematic analysis, 15 of which deal with the practice level and five with the organisation level. No studies were identified as belonging to the policy level. The following themes were found at the practice level: teachers’ work and role, teaching and learning, student transition and student dropout. Themes identified at the organisation level were changes to vocational policy documents and educational practices, and school organisation and its implementation. Finland dominates in terms of number of studies. Furthermore, the review shows that there were few studies in the area of SNE in VET. The results show that further studies are needed to acquire more knowledge about SNE in vocational education.