Abstract:

Attending university is a challenging experience for students which sometimes leads to high rates of underachievement. First-year seems to be the most critical for adaptation because of the adjustment difficulties (Cazan & Clinciu, 2014). The transition to higher education is a challenging one involving changes in the educational environment, unfamiliar academic tasks, new social networks, and the development of a new identity (Van Herpen et al., 2019).

The main aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships between academic adjustment and various personal factors, including socio-demographic factors and personality dimensions. The design of the study is cross-sectional, the participants being first-year students from two universities covering all fundamental domains, engineering, sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities, medicine, physical education and sports. Two personality traits- neuroticism and consciousness - were measuredusing the IPIP scales (Iliescu et al., 2015). The academic adjustment was measured with The Academic Adjustment Inventory (Clinciu & Cazan, 2014). A factual questionnaire was also used, to collect data about demographic aspects (gender, age, place of living), socio-economic aspects (living conditions, income per family member, family background, parents’ educations), and educational background (profile of the high school, baccalaureate mean grade, previous degrees or diplomas, the elapsed time from high school graduation, previous university enrolments), and current academic context (faculty, tuition fee, etc). Dropout intention was also measured through a one-item scale.

As expected, the two personality traits, neuroticism and consciousness, were significant predictors of academic adjustment. Previous achievement (pre-university mean grade) was a significant predictor of academic adjustment, after controlling for the impact of gender and family background. Besides pre-university achievement, other educational dimensions had also significant predictive values on the current adjustment, such as the profile of the high school, previous degrees or diplomas, the elapsed time from high school graduation, and previous university enrolments.

Our study showed that students’ entry characteristics significantly predict adjustment to university in the first year. The findings have important theoretical and practical implications, studies investigating the relationships between entry characteristics and academic adjustment dimensions in a Romanian academic context extend previous work in the field. From a practical point of view, determining the predictive role of entry characteristics on current academic adjustment and dropout intention, could lead to the development of institutional support systems for students at risk, to promote successful transition and lowering the attrition rates.

Keywords:

Academic adjustment, first-year university students, achievement, entry characteristics.