First-year students’ social adjustment process in professional higher education: key experiences and their occurrence over time

Data from an empirical study aimed at identifying the difficulties faced by students in their transition to higher education, the overcoming of which is important for personal development, are presented in the article. The study participants (n=179) were asked to describe the difficulties of transition from school to University in the 1st year based on analysis of their autobiographical memory. The content analysis of texts allowed identifying the main themes and compiling a list of challenges, and then the frequency of occurrence of each of them was determined. According to the results, the most actual difficulties are the different aspects of integrating into the new social community due to sharp changes in the social environment during the transition from school to University. A big challenge is the need for self-organization in educational and everyday matters, planning and organizing your time. The third most frequently mentioned is learning difficulties, especially those related to mastering the material in the new educational environment. Problematic areas of adaptation to higher education that have not been previously reflected in the sources are the establishment of a common life in the dormitory, pressure from parents, the manifestation of their individuality, the increase in the length of classes and the pace of learning, romantic relationships and language barriers. The difficulties of the first examination session are much less frequently mentioned, and are more frequently mentioned when examining the current adaptation process. The results of the study can be used for the development and subsequent implementation of a system of practical measures aimed at helping students to adapt to the new environment and conditions. Such assistance to students in building a new way of life at a university, especially at an early stage of study, is necessary not only to improve the effectiveness of the educational process, but also to facilitate the processes of personal growth and development of students

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Japan: The "Haves" are Gaining and the "Have-Nots" are Losing

International Higher Education ◽

10.6017/ihe.2009.57.8455 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Yoshiaki Obara

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Higher Education Institutions ◽

Private Higher Education ◽

First Year ◽

Prospective Students ◽

Risk Of Falling ◽

First Year Students ◽

Rural Colleges ◽

Negative Cycle ◽

Rural Institutions

Many Japanese private higher education institutions also face a risk of falling into the "losing group." It seems that small/rural colleges end up receiving less extra income from admissions over the tei-in (the quota for first-year students) level. This loss creates less scholarship money for capable students. The small/rural institutions are likely to lose prospective students as a negative cycle works against them. This tendency, in turn, augments the opportunities available to large, metropolitan higher education institutions. In Japan, a clear division is anticipated, with the larger institutions getting much larger and the smaller and rural ones getting much smaller. This is a hard fact that we will face in the foreseeable future.

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Personality traits and academic performance: Correcting self-assessed traits with vignettes

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0248629 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (3) ◽

pp. e0248629

Author(s):

Johan Coenen ◽

Bart H. H. Golsteyn ◽

Tom Stolp ◽

Dirk Tempelaar

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Personality Traits ◽

Student Performance ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Risk Preference ◽

Emotional Stability ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

Significant Relationships ◽

Point Estimates

In this study, we investigate whether Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability and Risk Preference relate to student performance in higher education. We employ anchoring vignettes to correct for heterogeneous scale use in these non-cognitive skills. Our data are gathered among first-year students at a Dutch university. The results show that Conscientiousness is positively related to student performance, but the estimates are strongly biased upward if we use the uncorrected variables. We do not find significant relationships for Emotional Stability but find that the point estimates are larger when using the uncorrected variables. Measured Risk Preference is negatively related to student performance, yet this is fully explained by heterogeneous scale use. These results indicate the importance of using more objective measurements of personality traits.

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SOCIOCULTURAL ADAPTATION OF FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN THE MODERN SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION

THE KAZAN SOCIALLY-HUMANITARIAN BULLETIN ◽

10.24153/2079-5912-2018-9-2-4-8 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 4-8

Author(s):

L.V. Annikova ◽

◽

T.V. Bakhutashvili ◽

E.V. Ilchenko ◽

◽

...

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

First Year ◽

Sociocultural Adaptation ◽

First Year Students ◽

Modern System

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Entering Higher Professional Education: Unveiling First-Year Students’ Key Academic Experiences and Their Occurrence Over Time

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.577388 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Jonas Willems ◽

Liesje Coertjens ◽

Vincent Donche

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Professional Education ◽

Critical Incident ◽

Transition Process ◽

Academic Experiences ◽

First Year ◽

Study Program ◽

First Year Students ◽

Academic Transition ◽

First Semester

To date, little understanding exists of how first-year students in professionally oriented higher-education (HE) programs (i.e., those that provide vocational education to prepare students for a particular occupation) experience their academic transition process. In the present study, we first argued how the constructs of academic adjustment and academic integration can provide complementary perspectives on the academic transition of first-year students in (professional) HE. Next, we examined what first-year students in professional HE contexts perceive to be the most important experiences associated with their academic transition process in the first semester of their first year of higher education (FYHE). To this end, we adopted the fundamentals of the critical incident technique and asked 104 students in a Flemish (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) university college (which offers professional HE programs, such as nursing) to complete “reflective logs” with open questions at the start of the second semester of their FYHE, wherein they reflected on three critical academic experiences during their first semester. An inductive, cross-case content analysis of the collected narratives showed that students reported on nine themes of academic experiences, which relate to five adjustment themes (dealing with the organization of the study program, organizing study work, committing to the study, following class and taking notes, and processing learning content outside class) and four integration themes (feeling competent, feeling stressed, feeling prepared, and feeling supported). Further analyses showed that although some of the nine themes of academic experiences appear to be more important at different times in the first semester, they all seem to be meaningful throughout the whole semester.

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Assembling the Global University

Cases on Quality Teaching Practices in Higher Education ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-3661-3.ch022 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 366-377 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Gray Kochhar-Lindgren

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Core Curriculum ◽

Cultural Practices ◽

Entrepreneurial University ◽

First Year ◽

Human Beings ◽

First Year Students ◽

Global University ◽

National Boundaries ◽

The University

This chapter examines the emergence of the global artistic-entrepreneurial university, the increasing importance of interdisciplinary and innovative pedagogies, and how these new emphases are shaping institutional change. The first section analyzes the global university as an “assemblage,” a process that gathers ideas, materialities, digitized platforms, and human beings into a new form of higher education. Because of the impacts on higher education of the flows of capital, technology, people, and cultural practices in both the “East” and the “West,” this form of the university transcends regional and national boundaries as it builds networks of learning around the world. The second section of the chapter focuses on the increasing importance of interdisciplinarity and developing active and integrative pedagogies organized around fundamental skills and questions. In order to ground the discussion in particular sites, the authors use examples from the University of Hong Kong’s new Core Curriculum and from the University of Washington Bothell’s Discovery Core for first-year students. In the final section, the chapter addresses what the next steps might look like as institutions change themselves to fit a globalized context. This section returns to the idea of the global university as a “hub of an ecology of studio-labs” (Parks, 2005, p. 57) and suggest that the “managerial” university is transitioning into a more flexible model of the “artistic-entrepreneurial” university in order to prosper in an extremely competitive and generative global environment.

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Selective Planning of the First Year Experience in Higher Education: A Sweden-Australia Comparative Study of Support

International Journal of Higher Education ◽

10.5430/ijhe.v7n2p128 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 128

Author(s):

Michael Christie ◽

Sorrel Penn-Edwards ◽

Sharn Donnison ◽

Ruth Greenaway

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

First Year Experience ◽

Fourth Generation ◽

First Year ◽

Policy And Practice ◽

First Year Students ◽

Satellite Campus ◽

First Case ◽

Research Findings ◽

The University

Literature on the support of the First Year Experience (FYE) in institutions of Higher Education provides a range of modelled approaches. However, we argue that institutions still need to selectively plan which approach/es and attendant strategies are best suited to their particular contexts and institutional policy and practice frameworks and how their FYE is to be presented for their particular student cohort. This paper compares different ways of supporting students in their first year in two contrasting universities. The first case study focuses on a first year course at Stockholm University (SU), Sweden, a large, metropolitan, single campus institution, while the second investigates a strategy for supporting first year students using a community of practice at a satellite campus of the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), a small regional university in South-East Queensland, Australia. The research contrasts a formal, first generation support approach versus a fourth generation support approach which seeks to involve a wider range of stakeholders in supporting first year students. The research findings draw conclusions about how effective the interventions were for the students and provide clear illustrations that selective planning in considering the institution’s strategic priorities and human, physical, and resource contexts was instrumental in providing a distinctive experience which complemented the institute and the student cohort. (212 words)

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Sustainability of Equal Evaluations Among Teachers of First-Year Students in Higher Education

2019 International Congress on Applied Information Technology (AIT) ◽

10.1109/ait49014.2019.9144816 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Yasuo Nakata ◽

Yasuhiro Kozaki ◽

Kenya Bannaka ◽

Mizuki KONDO ◽

Yuji Mizokoshi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students

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Motivational Priorities Analysis of Consumers

Management of the personnel and intellectual resources in Russia ◽

10.12737/12096 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

pp. 61-66

Author(s):

Булгакова ◽

V. Bulgakova

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

High School ◽

Academic Progress ◽

First Year ◽

First Year Students ◽

Technological Institute ◽

Profile Changes ◽

Motivational Profile ◽

The University ◽

Graduating Students

The article discloses logic and accumulates key findings of the research of motivational priorities of first-year students of Biysk technological Institute (branch) and potential applicants (graduating students of high school of Biysk town). The research was conducted in the autumn 2014. This research shows how much seriously respondents take higher education and choice of the University and what an important thing of their future university is. Also the research let us determine if respondents’ motivational profile changes because of parametric characterization such as sex, academic progress, specialisation, etc, and if there are some differences in motives of getting higher education and choice of the university of potential and real applicants.

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