Journal of Education Research and Behavioral Sciences Vol. 3(5), pp. 102-105, May, 2014

Available online at http://www.apexjournal.org

ISSN 2315-8735© 2014 Apex Journal International

Full Length Research

Adjustment Amongst First year Students in an Iranian

University

Nasrin Nikfal Azar, and Hamideh Reshadatjoo*

Department of Higher Education Management, College of Management and Economics, Tehran Science and Research

Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Accepted 5 May, 2014

The Purpose of this study was to explore the level and correlates of adjustment problems freshman

students are facing in an Iranian University. From among statistical population of 4585 bachelor first

year students, 357 persons were determined as the sample of study by random selection. Two

questionnaires were used for collection of data for this study, namely the student adaptation to college

questionnaire (Baker and Siryk, 1989) and Academic Self-efficacy (Owen and Forman, 1988). The results

showed the student` overall adjustment and it`s four subscales are in moderate level, suggesting that

they are facing some problems in adjusting to university environment. Findings also indicate that

student academic self-efficacy were related positively to their adjustment. The research concluded

there is a need to develop programs that effectively promote the academic self-efficacy of first year

students to maximize their college adjustment and consequently retention rate.

Key words:

Adjustment, academic self- efficacy, student.

INTRODUCTION

University student`s adjustment to the campus

environment is regarded as an important factor in

predicting university outcomes. Student` entries into the

colleges are often met with challenges. The students

often find that learning packages and teaching

methodologies are different are different from what

obtained at the secondary school level. Generally.

College classes are more difficult than high school

classes. In order to survive in new environment, they

must take responsibility for their actions. All these can

results in emotional strain which impact their adjustment

to university. previous Research revealed that the first

two years in college are very critical for student retention.

For example, 25% of college students dropped out of

school after their first year of their study (Mallinckrodr and

Sedlacek, 1987; Tinto, 1993; Tinto, Russo, and Kadel,

1994), and among all dropouts 75% left college in the first

two years (Tinto, 1987, 1988). Research showed that this

failure was caused by adjustment difficulties (Tinto, 1993;

Martin Jr., Swartz, Madson, 1999). On the other hand,

*Corresponding author. Email: hamidehreshadatjoo@gmail.com

the better adjusted students are in academic environment,

the better will be their academic performance (Lent

et al

Baker and Siyrk (1999) viewed college adjustment to

university as multifaceted that involved an array of

demands varying in kind and degree which required a

variety of coping responses or adjustments. They

suggested that there are four aspects of adjustment to

college or university that can be measured SACQ which

are: academic adjustment, social adjustment, personalemotional

adjustment, and institutional attachment

., 2004).

LITERATURE REVIEW

Russell and Petrie (1992) added personal factors in his

theory of adjustment to college. The inclusion of personal

factors further the work of previous researchers

(Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991; Astin, 1975, Bean,

1980, 1982) by going beyond social, academic and

institutional factors, to also consider the role of personal/

individual factors in student`s adjustment to college and

ultimately their persistence to graduation. For the

purpose of this study, the conceptualization of college

student adjustment will fit within the Russell and Petrie

(1992) theory.

Previous research shows a relationship between

academic self-efficacy and college adjustment. For

example, Chemers

academic self-efficacy was strongly related, both directly

and indirectly, to academic performance and student

adjustment. .Highly efficacious students entered college

with confidence in their ability to perform well

academically. Students who lacked self-efficacy did not

perform as well academically as those students who had

higher academic expectations. Self-efficacy remained

significant even when controlling for the effect of high

school GPA as measures of academic ability. Solberg

and Vilarea`s (1997) results suggested that academicself

efficacy expectations may be an important factor in

college persistence. Self-efficacy beliefs have been

related to motivation by determining what goals are set,

how much effort is used to accomplish the goals, and the

amount of time and resiliency expended during difficulties

and failure (Bandura, 1993).

According to our interpretation of the adjustment

literature, among other factors, we expected academic

self-efficacy to have notable impact on the adjustment of

first year college students as they navigate the

demanding environment of university life. Academic Selfefficacy

refers to individuals convictions that they can

successfully perform given academic tasks at designated

levels (Schunk, 1991).

Our study adds to the literature on this aspect in Iranian

universities and other higher education institutions. As to

our knowledge, these relationships have never been

tested in this context before.

Given the many implications of transition to university life

for new students, this study has been intended to

investigate student`s characteristics and adjustments

experiences upon entry to a university. Specifically the

objectives of this study include:

1. To find out the level of adjustment amongst first year

undergraduates.

2. To find out the relationship between first-year student

academic-self efficacy and their adjustment to university.

et al. (2001) found that, indeed,

Our hypotheses are:

There is a positive and meaningful correlation between

first year student academic self-efficacy and their

adjustment to university on it`s four subscales including:

Academic adjustment, Social adjustment, Personal

/emotional adjustment and Institutional attachment.

Participants

The samples of the study comprised of 300 first year

Azar and Reshadatjoo 103

students from Azad University, located in Tehran, were

selected using random sampling method in academic

year 2012-2013. The response rate of the students was

100%, which included 26.7% males and 73.3% females.

The gender distribution was almost the same as

compared to that in the normal student population of

university under study. The mean age for both males and

females was 20.35. Table 1 presents the means,

standard deviations, and zero-order correlations for the

variables.

Measures

The instruments used in this study were adapted from

well established instruments and the items for each

instrument were validated by experts. The instruments

used include the following:

The College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale:

completed as a measure of academic self efficacy

(CASE; Owen and Froman, 1988) described by

Bandura`s (1977) Foundational theory. The scale

consists of 33 self-report items that are scored on a 5-

poing Likert-type scale ranging from 1=very little to

5=quite a lot. The alpha values for the this variables is

0.889.

This was

Student adaptation to College Questionnaire:

SACQ (the student adaptation to college questionnaire)

(Baker and Siryk, 1989). The SACQ is a 67-item selfreported

measure yielding 4 scales assessing college

student`s academic adjustment, social adjustment,

personal/emotional adjustment, and their attachment to

the university. Overall adjustment was used in the study

by summing student` scores on all the four subscales.

Students responded to each statement on a 9-point scale

ranging from 1="applies very closely to me" to

9="Doesn`t apply to me at all". High scores indicate

better adjustment. Alpha coefficient for the full scale and

the subscales ranged from 0.81 to 0.95 among first year

university students (Baker and Siryk, 1989. The instrument

reliability levels were tested and findings revealed

that the alpha values for the variables are: Overall

adjustment scale: 0/865, social adjustment scale: 0/816,

academic adjustment scale: 0/602, institutional attachment

scale: 0/780, personal-emotional scale: 0/792

Method of Analyzing Data

The.

The software programme SPSS version 15.0 was used

for our basic analysis .After checking for normal

distribution of the data, linearity of relationships between

variables and computing the basic correlations between

the different variables, reliability tests for all the scales

used to measure the different variables were performed.

Multiple regression analysis was planned to determine

104 J. Edu. Res. Behav. Sci.

Table 1.

The Distribution of Respondent`s Level of Adjustment.

Variables

High Moderate Low

Score

f % Score f % Score f %

OA 455 & above 20 7 261-454 264 88 260& below 16 5

AA 168& above 21 7 96-167 255 85 95 & below 24 8

SA 126& above 25 9 72-125 241 80 71 & below 34 11

PEA 105 & above 49 16 60- 104 217 72 95& below 34 11

IA 105 & above 67 22 60- 104 215 72 59 & below 18 6

OA: Academic Adjustment, SA: Social Adjustment, PEA: Personal-Emotional Adjustment, IA: Institutional Attachment

Table 2.

Mean Scores for the four adjustment dimensions.

Variables M SD

Academic Adjustment

Social Adjustment

Personal-Emotional Adjustment

Institutional Attachment

5.35

5.63

5.57

6

1.064

1.251

1.457

1.416

Notes: M=Mean; SD=Standard Deviation; N=300

Table 3.

Correlates

1 2 3 4 5

1 Academic self-efficacy 1

2 Academic adjustment .486

3 Social adjustment .367

4 Personal-emotional adjustment .199

** 1** .635** 1** .530** .480** 1 *

5 Institutional attachment .345

** .666** .766** .510** 1

SD

0.613 1.064 1.251 1.457 1.416

M

3.13 5.35 5.63 5.57 6.0

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

whether study dependent variables affect independent

variables.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

To address the first year of this study, student `s overall

adjustment was determined by the Full Scale score. The

Full Scale score were then divided into three categories

(high, average, low) according to the guidelines provided

by the authors in the manual. Table 1 summarized the

level of student`s overall adjustment as well as the four

separate areas of adjustment. Findings in the Table 1

indicated that 88% of the respondent`s overall adjustment

were at the moderate level, while only 7% obtained a

high level of overall adjustment, 5% were found to be in

the low category for their overall adjustment. As for the

subscale score, majority (more than 50%) of the

participants were in the moderate category. This showed

that most of respondents had a moderate level for all the

four areas of adjustment which indicated that many

subjects in this study were exposed to adjustment

problems in adjusting themselves to campus life.

Moderate level of the overall adjustment and the four

dimensions of adjustment amongst first year student in

this study indicated that they experienced some of the

adjustment problems as shown in Table 2.

Data was further analyzed to compare student`s

adjustment of the four subscales. Results in Table 3

revealed that respondents achieved the highest level of

adjustment in institutional attachment (M=6, SD=1.416),

followed by social adjustment (M=5.63, SD=1.251),

Personal-emotional adjustment (M=5.57, SD=1.457), and

Academic adjustment (5.35, SD=1.064).

A further analysis was done to examine the relationship

between the variables under study. The results of

correlation analysis are shown in Table 3. The Table 3

shows the correlation analysis of student academic selfefficacy

and adjustment in four subscales has a positive

and significant correlation.

There is positive and meaningful relationship between

academic self-efficacy and social adjustment (Beta=

0.367, P<0.001).

There is positive and meaningful relationship between

academic self-efficacy and personal-emotional

adjustment (Beta=0.199, p<0.001).

There is positive and meaningful relationship between

academic self-efficacy and attachment to the university

(Beta=0.345, p<0.001).

The study confirms that students in university do face

problem in adjusting themselves at university. Therefore

serious attention needs to be given to students who face

problems in the first years in university. Next outcome of

this research have been academic that self-efficacy

affects first year student overall adjustment to university,

the finding is Consistent with the finding of Lent

(1984) who explored academic self-efficacy as a

predictor of academic adjustment.

As Bandura (1997) asserted , the finding of present

study suggest that individual self-efficacy is likely to play

a large role in the goals people set for themselves and

how they go about accomplishing them. In essence, the

experience of doing this study has fostered a great

interest in pursuing more opportunities to improve first

year student adjustment to university.

et al.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thanks the anonymous referees

for constructive comments on earlier version of this

paper.

REFERENCES

Astin, A.W. (1975). Preventing students from dropping

out ,San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive

development and functioning.

148.

Educ. Psychol., 28: 117-

Bandura, A. (1997).

New York: Freeman

Bean, J.P. (1980). Dropouts and turnover: the synthesis

and test of a causal model for student attrition.

Higher Educ.

Bean, J.P. (1982). Student attrition, intentions, and

confidence: Interaction effects in a path model.

Higher Educ.

Self-efficacy: The exercise of control..Res., 12: 155-187.Res., 17: 291-319.

Azar and Reshadatjoo 105

Bollen, K.A. (1989).

Variables

Structural Equations with Latent, Wiley, New YORK, NY.

Jantzer, A.M. (2006).

victimization, College adjustment, and the role of

coping

University at Carbodale.

Retrospective reports of bullying. Unpublishied dissertation, Southern Illinois

Lopez, S.P., Peon, J.M., Ordas, C.J.V. (2005

resource practices, organizational learning and

business performance". Hum. Resour. Dev. int.,

). "Human

8(2):147-164.

Mallinckrodt, B., Sedlacek. W.E. (1987). Student

retention and the use of campus facilities by race.

NASPA J.,

Martin, Jr. W.E., Swartz, J.L, Madson, M. (1999).

Psychosocial factors that predict the college adjustment

of first- year undergraduate students: implications for

college counselors.

16.

Owen, S.V., Forman, R.D. (1988). Development

College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale

at the Annual Meeting of the National Council on

Measurement in Education (New Orleans, LA).

Pascarella, E.T., Terenzini, P.T. (1991). "

affects students

Russell, R.K., Petrie, T.A. (1992).

of college students: Assessment and counseling.

S.D. Brown and R.W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of

Counseling Psychology (2

York: John Wiley and Sons.

24(3): 28-32.J. Coll. Counsel., 2(2): 121-133.1-of a. Paper presentedHow college". San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Academic adjustmentInnd Ed.) (PP.485-511). New

Schneider, M.E., Ward, D.J. (2003). The role of ethnic

identification and perceived social support in Latino`s

adjustment to college.

554.

Hispanic J. Behav. Sci., 25: 539-

Schunk, D.H. (1991). Self-efficacy and academic

motivation.

Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes

and cures of student attrition (2

Tinto.V. (1987). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes

and cures of student attrition .

(1stEd.)Chicago: university of Chicago Press.

Tinto, V. (1988). Stages of student departure: Reflections

on the longitudinal character of student leaving.

Higher Educ.

Education Psychologist, 26(3&4): 207-231.nd Ed.).J., 59(4): 438-455