The effects of counseling for choosing a field of study

The present study aims at an evaluation of the guidance program offered by the University of Linz to students with university entrance qualification since 1991. The analysis is based on questionnaire data on the study progress collected from 194 participants and from a random sample of nonparticipants (control group) of the 1997 cohort of school leavers. All success criteria (grade point average, perceived study success, study satisfaction, and perceived stability of the study choice) show a positive effect of the guidance program. These positive effects are supported by the results of survival analyses (Cox regression with type of secondary school, faculty, and sex as covariates) of the "time to event" (terms before graduation or drop out, respectively) with archival data of all students, who had left Upper Austrian secondary schools in the years 1991 to 1994 and entered the University of Linz during those years. Among them were those students who had participated in the guidance program in the second term of their last school year.