WHAT DO SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT A UNIVERSITY THAT WOULD FACILITATE THEIR CHOICE?

Transitition from secondary education to university entails some obstacles and problems that are involved in the decission making process about the choice of a university degree by secondary school students. Nowadays universities are more and more concerned with this problem, so that they have developed different actions in order to advise and attend secondary school students in this process. At the UPV (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia), on the one hand we have carried out actions addressed to students who are still at secondary school. Some of them require physical presence, such as Jornadas de Puertas Abiertas (Open Days for Students), and others just consist on offering information in different formats. On the other hand, there are also actions adressed to freshmen such as the INTEGRA Program, which consists on the Jornadas de Acogida (Welcome Days) and the Plan de Acción Tutorial Universitario (University Tutorial Action Plan).

In this communication, we show a work carried out over more than 2000 freshmen of our university during the Welcome Days in order to determine which are the main factors that facilitate transition from secondary education to university. This was based on the answers to a questionnaire elaborated for these purposes. Our study goals are to present which are the reasons that makes the choice of a degree easier, and to determine the previous knowledge that freshmen have about our institutuion. The results and assessments are of value in order to design actions that will respond to the necessities and interests of secondary school students, and to set them at the right moment.