IMRaD Report

Are High School Students Academically Prepared for College?

Abstract

In society today, education of all ages is becoming arguably more challenging and it often brings up the concern about whether or not students are academically prepared for these high expectations. After conducting a survey, a researcher has concluded that a majority of college students feel as if they were not academically prepared for the superior demands of college courses. While many argue that taking difficult courses in college benefits students in the long run (p.2), this study shows that more than 50% of college students disagree with these seemingly unrealistic commitments. Results from this particular survey revealed that many students are struggling with the academic jump from high school to college and over half of these students do not feel academically prepared.

Introduction

            Education is a mandatory aspect of an individual's life from kindergarten to as late as twelfth grade. After high school graduation, teens finally obtain the freedom to make decisions about their future facing the options of going to community college, a four-year university, or straight to work. This is an overwhelming decision considering that the majority of millennials are not set on their expectations of the future. Although society today drills the idea of college into minds of high schoolers, furthering one's education is easier said than done. According to countless researches done on the topic, there is a large gap between what a student learns in high school, and the skills that they will actually need in college. In one finding, Hart Research Association displays how this lack of skills affects colleges because professors spend a significant amount of time teaching information that should have been learned in high school. More importantly is the affect that this fault has on students; this research provides an example of this academic uneasiness through a survey conducted to current college students.

Methods

Participants:

 Twenty-three male and female students participated in this survey. Every participant was current enrolled in a four- year university located in the United States.

Data Sources:

A survey was created on surveymonkey. It included seven questions regarding how academically prepared high school students are for college courses. Four of these questions were multiple choice, two of them were yes or no questions, and one was an open response question.

Procedure:

The researcher posted this survey on a blog for her peers in class to respond to. The researcher also posted this survey on Facebook in order to obtain responses from students at universities other than the University of Iowa.

Data Analysis:

The researcher analyzed the data and created graphs in order to display the results to the audience.

Results

In Table 1, students were asked a multiple choice question regarding whether or not they felt that high school courses were challenging enough to prepare them for college courses. A majority of the participants were opposed to this statement, resulting in 66.53 against it, and 36.67 for it. While there are answers from both sides of the spectrum, it is obvious that students do not think previous learning made them competent enough for college-level learning.

Table 1: High School Courses were difficult enough to academically prepare me for college.

In Table 2, the researcher introduced a question about the effort that students put towards their grades in college. 96.67% of participants claimed that they have to work a remarkable amount harder in college in order to receive sufficient grades than they ever had to in high school.

Table 2: I have to work a significant amount harder in college than I did in high school in order to achieve sufficient grades.

Table 3 refers to whether or not students felt academically prepared for college after high school. 50% of participants agreed to this statement, while the other 50% did not. Half of the students realized that they did not feel prepared for college before they even enrolled in classes. According to the research, it seems as if the confidence of the other half soon dropped after beginning college course.

Table 3: At the end of high school, I felt prepared to take on the difficulty of college.

Discussion

The results of this survey conclude that a majority of students do not feel as if high school learning prepared them for college courses. Hart explains that this uneasiness also creates problems in the school system. When taking both of these researches that include numerous people with different backgrounds, it is obvious that high schools across the nation are doing a poor job of preparing their students. Although 50% of students felt academically prepared for college after graduation high school, it appeared that many changed their minds after actually experiencing a college course. 66.53% of students felt as if high school courses were not difficult enough in order to succeed in a college course. As a result of the difficulty level increasing, 96.67% of students claim that they have to try remarkably harder in their classes in order to receive sufficient grades when compared to high school courses.

College students were chosen to participate in this survey because they have graduated high school and they are currently enrolled in college courses. Although many were confident in their academic abilities after leaving high school, many gained a new perspective after enrolling in college. When asked what they would have done differently in high school in this survey, many claimed that they would have taken harder courses; however, lack of overall skills, study habits, and lectures were mentioned. A majority of these issues are completely controlled by the structure of high school overall, and could be improved with reevaluation.