Pre-university programs and study success : a case study at the Pre-U of University of Twente

This research investigates the effects of participation in pre-university activities. For this, the Pre-U of University of Twente has been taken as a case study. The main research question addressed in this research is: ‘’Does participation in a pre-university program lead to more study success and, if so, how can this be explained?’’. It is expected that students who participated in pre-university actitivities have more study success in the form of a higher number of study credits than students who did not participate and that students who participated in pre-university activities have more study succes in the form of higher average grades in year 1 than student who did not participate. Surveys among pre-university as well as non-pre-university students are used to collect the data needed for this research. There has been investigated whether participation in pre-university activities leads to more study success via a better study choice, the creation of a sense of belonging and the development of academic competencies. The overall conclusion is that students who have participated in pre-university activities do not score better on these variables than students who did not participate in pre-university activities. Because of a low number of respondents and other time-related limitations, no hard conclusions can be drawn from this research. The recommendation for follow-up research is to repeat this research with more respondents, include only high intensive pre-university activities, use a more comprehensive conceptual model and use a longitudinal design.