Targeted orientation: a continuing study of the perceptions of transitioning first-year engineering students

Research by others has shown that student attitudes and approaches to tertiary learning have significant dependence on their expectations of university study. Surprisingly, a longitudinal study covering 15 years, and carried out by the Centre for the Study of Higher Education, did not investigate the transitioning student's expectations of learning and teaching practices at tertiary institutions. In a pilot study by two of the authors attempted to rectify this oversight by focusing on the pedagogical expectations of first-year engineering students at a tertiary institution.