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

Abstract

[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.