Obligatory participation in Studychoice Check will be abolished
- See whether you have a connection with a study programme, that is the goal of the new Matching Days.
- These start in a few months, so the preparations are quite the task for the study programs involved.
All study programmes have already started making preparations for the first Matching Days, meant for students who start in September 2019. These days will replace the Studychoice Check days and advices for the particular study programme. The participation in the Matching Days is not obligatory anymore. Windesheim prefers not to offer Studychoice Check Advices anymore. During the Matching Days, interested students can experience whether or not they have a connection with the contents of a study programme, the students and the teachers or with studying at Windesheim, before the academic year starts. Keywords are acquaintance, deepening and reflection. The study programmes are allowed to fill in the programme on their own. The expectation is that the Matching Days are regarded as more motivating than the Studychoice Check.
During the past few weeks all information- and communication-tools for schools and future students have already been adjusted and one is currently working hard on the new online questionnaire that students have to fill in previous to the Matching Days tells project leader Anneke Postma, coordinator of the project group ‘From Studychoice Check to Matching Day’. Anneke Postma: “By January the study programmes should know what these days, which will be held between February and June, should look like”. Postma expects that the change in the near future will increase the work pressure amongst teachers, but that after the introduction less time will be spend on Matching Days compared to the Studychoice Check, because of the required one-on-one conversations and advices that had to be given to all the students.
The decision to get rid of the obligatory Studychoice Check since 2014 at Windesheim is suggested by a national research. “The studychoice check appears to not provide predictive value for success during the first year and does not help lessen the fallout ratio of students” the Executive Board concluded in their preposition to get rid of Windesheim’s Studychoice Check regulations. An additional reason is that Windesheim perceives a different perspective on students. Studychoice Check was experienced as a selection method, while Windesheim prefers to give the students control selecting their study programme these days. The Studychoice Check Advice remains to exist, although ‘low profile’, since future students still have the legal right to participate. Postma: ‘The study programmes keep on providing an advice when this is asked for, but we will not promote nor encourage it. We ask students to attend a Matching Day first, should they have second thoughts afterwards, then they can ask for a follow-up conversation with the Study Programme and if necessary Studychoice Check Advice.
