What happens if your background and the university want you to be two different people?

Team: Dr Lillian Smyth, Dr Ken Mavor, Mr Louie Gray

Photo by Chanhee Lee on Unsplash

For all students, starting university means building a new part of themselves: me, as a university student! For some students that process is much more difficult than others. For some, it can seem impossible; their background, friends, family, values and sense of self might be incompatible with what it means to be a university student. So what does that mean for these students, in terms of approaches to studying and academic success? What is the impact on learning approaches of seeing “me at home” and “me at university” as incompatible? And does it stretch beyond simple learning approaches to self-sabotaging behaviour like procrastination?

Smyth, Mavor & Gray (2019)

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