First-generation Students at Universities from the Aspect of Achievement, Motivation and Integration

Abstract

This paper describes the features of first-generation students from the perspectives of achievement, social integration and motivation. The scholarly literature highlights the special circumstances of these undergraduates and points out the systemic nature of their disadvantages. The database which was used during this analysis contains data from a large research university in Hungary (2019, N = 810). The empirical results show that first-generation students do not exhibit a lower level of achievement. However, they display special patterns when it comes to motivation toward higher education. If we compare first-generation students’ to students from highly educated backgrounds in terms of attitudes, we also see that their social integration among peers on the campus is not diverse. Finally, the results of the linear regression model have demonstrated that students with a high parental educational level have advantages. These results also help explain certain features of undergraduates from heterogeneous backgrounds, who seem to be more similar to first-generation students than to students from highly educated backgrounds. In conclusion, the findings of this study contribute to further understanding of the links by identifying the elements of first-generation students’ disadvantages (especially in the field of foreign language knowledge) and revealing that students’ efficiency is embedded in a complex way in socio-demographic and institutional elements, as well as in motivation. These findings suggest that the post-massification higher education system still contains hidden inequalities.