Topic: An in-depth investigation into first year undergraduate students’ social and personal-emotional adjustment to the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.

Introduction:

The transition to university expose students to a range of changes whereby students have varying experiences adjusting to university life (Crede & Niehorster 2012). Collie, Holliman, & Martin (2017) noted that understanding adjustment to university required a comprehensive range of factors to understand the phenomenon. Baker and Siryk (1989), as cited in Lenz (2014) identified four distinct dimensions of adjustment: academic adjustment, social adjustment, personal–emotional adjustment, and institutional attachment. The current study is focused on exploring the dimensions of students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life, since: they are underexplored dimensions, particularly the Caribbean region; to provide an understanding of how these dimensions impact students adjustment to university, and as a corollary their achievement, could help universities provide more inclusive approaches, strategies, support and practices that cater to diversity in education. From an international stance, there is scant research attention focusing on specific dimensions of adjustment. Additionally, much consideration is given to international student’s adjustment to university so there is a gap related to national students’ adjustment. Therefore, this study can be adapted for the international context.

The purpose of the study is to understand first year undergraduate students experience with social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine (UWISTA). Further, to assess the effects of the support UWISTA offer to assist students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life. Therefore, attention can be drawn to the gaps at UWISTA which may hinder students’ ability to adjust to university and impede students from being successful. Using this evidence to inform policy, UWISTA can promote equity and social justice in education by taking into consideration students’ social and psychological needs to provide the necessary support and mediate some of the challenges students encounter. 

Research Questions:

1. What are the issues first year undergraduate students experience with social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life at UWISTA?
2. In what ways do social and personal-emotional issues of first year undergraduate students affect their ability to adjust to university life at UWISTA?
3. What type of social and personal-emotional support is provided by the UWISTA to help first year undergraduate students adjust to university life at UWISTA?
4. To what extent does the support UWISTA offer assist first year undergraduate students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life?

Theoretical Framework

The model for analysing human adaptation to transition (Schlossberg, 1981) provides the theoretical understanding of individuals’ capacity to cope with changes. It outlined the key factors affecting individuals’ adjustment stemming from the transition to a new context. These factors refer to the characteristics of the transition, pre and post-transition environment and characteristics of the individual experiencing the transition. Further, the transition process relies on a range of coping skills to assist in adjustment including four sets of factors: situation, self, support and strategies (Anderson, Goodman and Schlossberg, 2012). Developing on this idea, the characteristic of the transition provides the basis for understanding undergraduate students’ perception of the transition to the university environment (situation). Moreover, pre and post-transition environment relates to social factors affecting the transition such as support from family, peers and the institution. Finally, the characteristic of the individual aligns with the psychological factors affecting adjustment to university (self). This theory examines the factors for understanding individuals’ adjustment to new situations and accounts for both psychological and social influences. In essence, Schlossberg’s theory of transition has provided the necessary theoretical framework to explain the association between psychosocial factors and social and personal-emotional adjustment to university.  

Method The study is guided by a qualitative approach for a detailed understanding of the student’s experience with adjustment to university. More specifically, it will utilize an instrumental single case method whereby a small group of first year undergraduate students will be selected to investigate students social and personal-emotional adjustment at UWISTA. According to Stake (1995), an instrumental case study provides the opportunity to investigate a phenomenon through patterns of behaviour. An associated strength with instrumental case study is that it allows for the generation of data patterns which improves generalization of the findings to an extent (Ridder, 2017). The experience of each student from the sample will be used to build a more in-depth and comprehensive understanding of the case social and personal-emotional adjustment at UWISTA. It is grounded in the social constructivist paradigm as the research focuses on how students construct and describe their experience with social and personal-emotional adjustment to UWISTA. The instrumental case study considers multiple realities, the co-construction of knowledge between the students and the researcher and places value on the subjective knowledge of the students. Sample The selection of the sample will be from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus using stratified purposeful sampling technique (Teddlie & Yu, 2007). In this manner, the sampling frame will be further divided into specific groups and participants will be deliberately selected from each stratum (Patton, 2015). The first-year undergraduate students will be divided according to faculty and the purposefully selected based on their nationality as it allows for capturing variations across groups. Altogether, two students (national and regional) will be selected from the eight faculty which gives a total of 16 participants. This sample size is adequate to reduce data saturation and information redundancy is found mainly around 9 to 17 participants in interview based qualitative research (Hennink & Kaiser, 2022). Instrument Semi-structured interview protocol will be employed to understand first year undergraduate students experience with social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life and to assess the effects of the support UWISTA offer to assist students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life. The use of semi-structured interview provides the opportunity to delve deeper into understanding adjustment to university. It allows flexibility to the researcher by allowing the use of prompts and probes to guide the interview process to explore the responses in greater depth understanding of students’ experiences with adjustment to university life.

The expected outcome of the research is to identify the issues first year undergraduate students experience with social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life and to understand the ways in which these social and personal-emotional issues affect their ability to adjust to university life at UWISTA. Additionally, an assessment of the type and effects of the social and personal-emotional support provided by UWISTA to assist first year undergraduate students social and personal-emotional adjustment to university life. This increases awareness of the determinants of mental health and wellbeing in education. Altogether, this study aims to provide an original contribution of research evidence in the Caribbean context. The information gathered from this investigation can be used to develop identification strategies or mechanisms for students facing social and personal-emotional adjustment difficulty. Further, it can assist in informing programmes to facilitate positive social and personal-emotional adjustment to university for undergraduate students. Additionally, it can inform policy development guiding students’ support services at the University of the West Indies to promote the provision of equitable support to students by taking into account the diversity in students’ psychological and social. Further, this study will benefit individual students by seeking to understand challenges associated their experience of social and personal-emotional adjustment to university. The organization of the university seek to benefit too as this would study will provide information that can assist in developing or adjusting the necessary programmes and policies. Finally, contributions will be made to the Caribbean region as an indigenous perspective will be formed as Roopnarine and Chadee (2016) highlighted the need. The Caribbean region’s historical and cultural development influences individuals’ socialization, interpersonal relationships and identity formation. Therefore, it is imperative to gain a context specific understanding.

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