This project investigates how students experience the disciplinary and academic content of their programmes throughout their bachelor’s degree. While the transition into university is widely recognised as challenging and often examined through frameworks of academic and social integration, existing research predominantly emphasises individual adjustment processes and generic learning skills rather than students’ engagement with specific disciplinary knowledge.
Yet disciplinary content itself constitutes both a key motivational factor and a potential learning barrier, and it remains markedly underexplored in higher education research. By examining how groups of students encounter and relate to the core knowledge of their disciplines, this project addresses this gap. It aims to generate insights that can better support students in navigating their studies and academic transitions.
Accordingly, the project is guided by the following research question: How do bachelor students describe and experience their encounters with disciplinary content knowledge, and which factors shape or influence these experiences over time?
Data are collected through individual and group interviews with students from ten study programmes across the five faculties at Aarhus University. Interviews take place midway through each semester of the bachelor's programme and follow a semi-structured interview guide.
The interview guide comprises six broad themes that illuminate different dimensions of students’ experiences of disciplinary content. The interview data are analysed using thematic coding.
The project is expected to generate insights of broad relevance and to have a significant impact across national and international educational contexts. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals and scholarly conferences, contributing to ongoing research on student learning and educational transitions.
At the national level, results are presented at venues such as the Danish University Pedagogical Conference (DUNK). Internationally, the project is shared at relevant academic conferences in higher education research, including EFYE and EARLI.
As part of CED’s practice-oriented mission, the findings are also communicated to programme and subject committees across the participating faculties. This ensures that the insights inform ongoing academic and educational development initiatives at CED and support evidence-based improvements to teaching and curriculum design.
