Person-environment fit in higher education: how good is the fit for indigenous students?

Person-environment fit in higher education: how good is the fit for indigenous students?

[Abstract]: [The authors] open this chapter with a brief description of a young Australian Aboriginal
student's first year at University. Her story is typical of the experiences of many Indigenous
students attempting to come to grips with life away from home in a competitive higher
education environment. [The authors] use her experiences as the basis for exploring a number of
themes that they feel have an impact on the academic success of Indigenous students: a) lack
of career knowledge among Indigenous students; b) the mismatch between what Indigenous
students expect to find at University and what they actually do find; c) mismatches between
the predominantly collectivist values held by Indigenous students and the more
individualistic values that predominate in Western university settings; d) external pressures
that make study difficult; and e) the lack of adequate preparation for the cognitive demands
of University study. [The authors] conclude that the last of these themes has the greatest immediate
impact on performance but that lack of preparation can be understood only in the context of a
wider range of cultural variables.

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