Adjustment among College Students Chapter I Introduction Adjustment is the behavioral process of balancing conflicting needs, or needs against obstacles in the environment. It can be a process of altering one's behavior to reach a harmonious relationship with their environment. Adjustment consists of two kinds of processes: fitting oneself into given circumstances and changing the circumstances to fit one’s need. The stress of this change causes one to try to reach a new type of balance or homeostasis between the individual (both inwardly and outwardly), and with the environment (Calhon & Acocella, 1983).People like to recognize that their behavior is not based upon emotional stresses rather it is governed by the operation of intellectual factors and self-control. There are varieties of adjustments. Important among them are home, health, social, emotional and educational adjustments (Mishra, 1994). The focus of this research was on overall adjustment in relation to educational settings. College is an adjustment and growth process that takes a lot of effort, patience, and common sense, but above 3
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Adjustment among College Students
Chapter I
Introduction
Adjustment is the behavioral process of balancing conflicting needs, or needs against
obstacles in the environment. It can be a process of altering one's behavior to reach a harmonious
relationship with their environment. Adjustment consists of two kinds of processes: fitting
oneself into given circumstances and changing the circumstances to fit one’s need. The stress of
this change causes one to try to reach a new type of balance or homeostasis between the
individual (both inwardly and outwardly), and with the environment (Calhon & Acocella,
1983).People like to recognize that their behavior is not based upon emotional stresses rather it is
governed by the operation of intellectual factors and self-control. There are varieties of
adjustments. Important among them are home, health, social, emotional and educational
adjustments (Mishra, 1994). The focus of this research was on overall adjustment in relation to
educational settings. College is an adjustment and growth process that takes a lot of effort,
patience, and common sense, but above all, college takes hard work. College is an experience
that some students find the most difficult experience of their lives; therefore, it is not hard to see
why some students drop out or have significantly low grades (Eileen, 2009).
Adjustment is something people engage in at every moment, something as natural and as
automatic as breathing. Adjustment may be natural but it is not necessarily automatic. It can be
purposeful and deliberate. Problems arise when the adjustment process starts going against a
person, when a person is influenced by himself or herself or bothers or the environment to do
things a person wishes he or she didn’t do or to feel things one doesn’t want to feel (Calhon &
Acocella, 1983).
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Adjustment among College Students
Adams defines ‘adjustment’ as the ‘efficiency with which the individual generates
positive rewards and avoids negative rewards and punishment. In an attempt to give a clear
picture of the meaning of ‘adjustment’, Good defines it as the process of finding and adopting
modes of behavior suitable to the environment or to changes in the environment and favorable,
neutral or unfavorable adaptation of an organism to external and internal stimulation. People like
to recognize that their behavior is not based upon emotional stresses rather it is governed by the
operation of intellectual factors and self-control. It is true that many human responses are
directed by objective reasoning and judgment but there are times when the thinking and behavior
of the people are almost completely influenced by emotional urges and drives and therefore, they
react to situation. The reactions in different situations may be due to personal conflicts or
frustrations or may be the demands of the environment. Whatever the level of reactions may be,
but people react to their personal conflicts and frustrations and to the demands of the
environment in divergent ways. These reactions, according to Shneiders, are known as ‘patterns
of adjustment’. Such an approach has to do with the kind of response that a person makes to
whatever problems, difficulties or demands he encounters (Mishra, 1994).
Adjustment may also be defined as one’s continuous interaction with oneself, with other
people, and with one’s world. These three factors are constantly acting on and influencing a
person. The relationship is reciprocal, for the person is constantly acting on them as well. One
self, that is the sum total of what one already is: one’s body, one’s behavior, and one’s thoughts
and feelings, is something that one is dealing with in every split second (Calhon & Acocella,
1983).
Adjustment occurs over time – in common speech; this is often referred to this as an
“adjustment period”. The length and depth of the adjustment required is dependent upon the
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complexity of the change that catalyzed it, and the underlying resilience of both the person and
their environment. Environment influenced the behavior and inturn behaviour influenced the
behaviour. The environment molds the self. The behaviours that specfic environments elicit may
become parmanent parts of the self, determining the direction of future personality development
(Hirsch & Ellis, 1996).
Adjustment, in other words, involves genuine crises as well as more ordinary, day-to-day
difficulties. When major crises occur, it is often a good idea to seek professional psychological
help to get one through the adjustment process. For most of students, however, major adjustment
crises are rare .The challenge of life is simply coping with a multitute of minor problems, things
that one’s influence, such as getting along better with parents, dealing with difficulities at work,
studing more efficiently, and controlling anxieties. The way a person adjust and one’s judgement
as to whether it is a healthy adjustment depend very much on what the person is adjusting to.
Some people can make a reasonable adjustment to one environment but not to another, in an
evironment that calls for spontaneous behaviour, a person who is very restrained emotionlly may
seem maladjusted –repressed, overcontrolled, and so forth .consider, on the other hand, a person
in a situation demanding emotional restraint (Calhon & Acocella, 1983).
The earliest definition of adjustment was given by Arkoff (1968) as a person’s interaction
with his or her environment. Arkoff (1968) further defined college or university adjustment in
terms of college achievement which covered students’ academic achievement and personal
growth. In his approach, the adjusted student is the one who obtains adequate grades, passes in
his or her courses, and eventually graduates. Conversely, the maladjusted student is the one, who
demonstrates unsatisfactory grades, marginal level of performance in course work, or failing, and
shows tendency in dropping out of university or college before graduation. Besides academic
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achievement, university adjustment also involves the idea of personal growth. An adjusted
student is the one who will show good personal growth in terms of non-academic potential with
reference to accomplishments outside of the classroom such as in art and music, creativity, and
leadership (Calhon & Acocella, 1983).
Baker and Siryk (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. With this assumption, they developed an instrument namely The
Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) to assess students’ adjustment to college.
Baker and Siryk (1999) suggested that there are four aspects of adjustment to college or
university that can be measured by the SACQ which are: academic adjustment, social
adjustment, personal-emotional adjustment, and institutional attachment. Studies have shown
that adjustment among first year undergraduates has a strong impact on their academic
achievement (Martin Jr. et al., 1999; Sennett et al., 2003; Wintre & Bowers, 2007; Zuria, Noriah,
& Syafrimen, 2004).
It is rather common knowledge that the first year of collegiate education is one of the
hardest. College is an adjustment and growth process that takes a lot of effort, patience, and
common sense, but above all, college takes hard work. One study (Lapsley, Rice, & FitzGerald,
1990) found that for many adolescents, departure from home is a major transition; it takes its toll
on the level of adaptation achieved by the students. College is an experience that some students
find the most difficult experience of their lives; therefore, it is not hard to see why some students
drop out or have significantly low grades (Martin Jr. et al., 1999; Sennett et al., 2003; Wintre &
Bowers, 2007; Zuria, Noriah, & Syafrimen, 2004).
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The dynamic relationship between the person and environment is magnified in college
students. During college, adjustment is a huge factor towards accomplishment. The environment
in which college students live is quite different. Different environmental factors affects
adjustment level among students as stessors, crowding, noise, temperature, rooms situation etc.
The pressure to earn good grades and to earn a degree is very high (Calhon & Acocella, 1983).
The environment influences behavior in four ways. First the environment puts constraints
on the behavior. It limits what a student can do. Second the environment elicits behavior; it tells
us how to act. Third, the environment molds the self. The behaviors that specific environments
elicit may become permanent parts of the self, determining the direction of future personality
development. Fourth, the environment affects the self-image (Calhon & Acocella, 1983).
Stress is a sense of threat accompanied by coping efforts aimed at reducing that threat.
Environmental stressors influence our behavior and thus affect one’s social adjustment in the
environment. In situations in which a student is surrounded by a crowd of others, students are not
always pleasant to each other. The fact that being in a crowd may or may not be perceived as
stressful has led environmental psychologists to develop a distinction between two conditions –
population density and crowding. Population density is the number of people per unit of space.
Crowding is the psychological state of stress that sometimes results from high population
density. One apparent result of crowding is that it lessens interpersonal attraction. High density
robs us of interaction with others. The sense of control over social interaction appears to be a
powerful human need and the lack of it can result in lack of adjustment among students (Calhon
& Acocella, 1983).
A second important environmental stressor is unwanted sound, generally known as noise.
The noise has a negative effect on interpersonal behavior. Noise that is predictable is apparently
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Adjustment among College Students
easier to adapt to and produces fewer negative effects than unpredictable noise, which can
damage task performance and frustration – tolerance. Unpredictable noise robs the individual of
his feeling that he controls his environment; it makes him feel helpless. A third environmental
stressor that can reduce tolerance of other human beings is heat (Calhon & Acocella, 1983).
One environmental factor that can have effects ranging from the most positive to the most
negative is called built environment. One interesting line of investigation has to do with the
relationship between interpersonal attraction and the beauty and ugliness of the classrooms. The
more the ugliness the less will be the interpersonal attraction and vice versa. A second aspect of
room design, furniture arrangement, has an even clearer impact on interpersonal behavior.
Furniture arrangement guides thought and action, a student’s role and his or her behavior. One
type of behavior that seating arrangements definitely control is socializing. According to
Osmond (1957), seating can create either sociopetal space or sociofugal space. In sociopetal
space, seats face one another and are close together, encouraging us to interact. In sociofugal
space, seats are either placed side by side, encouraging us to ignore the person next to us and
simply stare straight ahead, or they are so far apart that it is impossible to talk (Calhon &
Acocella, 1983).
One study (Valios, Thatcher, Drane, & Reininger, 1997) found that both Public and
Private high school students participate in high risk behavior, of which Public high school
students were more likely to participate in high risk behavior, this was while the students were
still in attendance at their respective high schools. The results of this study also suggested that
attending a private high school was a safeguard against high-risk behavior. Another study (Stein,
Soskin, & Korchin, 1975) found that when they examined public urban, public suburban, and
private residential schools there was a greater amount of high-risk behavior, i.e. drug use, among
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suburban and private residential schools than in the urban environment. This study brings the
idea of the suburban and residential students having more high-risk behavior than their urban
counterparts, which had previously been a stereotype. The researchers found that the reason
behind the elevated quantity of high-risk behavior amongst suburban and private residential
schools was that the students came from predominantly well-educated and wealthy families. The
cause of these students elevated high-risk behavior was straightforward: lack of entertainment
(Eileen, 2009).
Earning high grades is not the only source of stress for college students. Stress is defined
by psychologists including Lazarus (1960) as a sense of threat accompained by coping efforts
aimed at reducing that threat. For most people final exams produces stress. It poses the threat of
failure, a threat that one’s try to cope with by studying. Other potential sources of stress include
excessive homework, unclear assignments, and uncomfortable classrooms (Kohn & Frazer,
1986). In addition to academic requirements, relations with faculty members and time pressures
may also be sources of stress (Cohen & Lowental, 1988). Relationships with family and friends,
eating and sleeping habits, and loneliness may affect some students adversely in adjusting
(Wright, 1967). A student with adjustment problems often experiences feelings of depression or
anxiety or combined depression and anxiety. As a result, may act out behaviorally against the
"rules and regulations" of college, family, work, or society (Calhon & Acocella, 1983). High
levels of social support buffer individuals from stress (Robbins, Lese, & Herrick, 1993).
Attachment theory has emphasized the importance of healthy emotional bonds, and students who
are able to create and maintain healthy bonds with others tend to have an easier time adjusting to
college (Rice et al., 1995). Social adjustment may be just as important as academic adjustment,
according to Gerdes and Mallinckrodt (1994) who studied 155 freshmen and found that
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Adjustment among College Students
"personal adjustment and integration into the social fabric of campus life play a role at least as
important as academic factors in student retention" (Enochs & Roland, 2006).
In some cases college students use several different forms of stress-relief to cope with
their classes and assignments, ranging from smoking to alcohol consumption. Park and Levenson
(2002) performed a survey that found that students’ drinking to cope is a considerable factor in
college student alcohol consumption. The researchers also found that men are more likely to use
alcohol to cope with stress than women are. Alcohol use to cope with a situation is a common
occurrence due to the prevalence and accessibility of alcohol on college campuses. However, in
some cases these habits have already been developed fully within the student’s high school
careers. However, in college going out and drinking have a more harsh effect than just a
reputation for being a heavy drinker. In college, drinking and late nights often can cause missed
classes, missed appointments, and missed opportunities, not to mention a lowered GPA. One
study (Chemers, Hu, & Garcia, 2001) used two sets of questionnaires to record data about
college adjustment. The questionnaires were handed out at the beginning of the fall semester and
the end of the second semester. The researchers calculated how academic self-efficacy and
optimism affect a student’s academic performance, stress, health, and commitment to remain in
school results within each set of surveys. This study found that academic self-efficacy and
optimism had a strong correlation to performance and adjustment, but also had a direct
correlation to academic performance (Frederickson & Schrader, 1951).
Based on the adjustment model by Baker and Siryk (1984), a study aimed to explore
college adjustment processes experienced by 250 first year university students who were
attending various undergraduate programmes in a Malaysian public university. In addition it
examined the role of gender in college adjustment and the impact of college adjustment on
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Adjustment among College Students
students’ academic achievement. The study employed a correlation design and data was analyzed
using descriptive and inferential statistics to address the research objectives. Findings from the
study showed that students’ overall adjustment was at a moderate level and male students were
found to be better adjusted compared to female students (Calhon & Acocella, 1983).
According to classsical behaviourism, people engage in certain behaviors because they
have learned, through previous experiences, to associate this behaviour with rewards.
Likewise ,people stop engaging in certain behaviours because these behaviour either have not
been rewarded or have been punished .All behaviour ,no matter how wholesome or
destructive ,are learned behaviours, well-adjusted people who have learned behaviour that help
them deal successfully with life’s demands and maladjusted people who have learned behaviour
that prevent them dealing sucessfully with life’s demands. A good illustration of the
behaviorist’s recent interest in internal events is Walter Mischel’s (1973) theory that human’s
behaviour is the product of the interplay of the charactertists of the situation. According to
Mischel, however, behaviour issues from the interaction of the internal and external events. On
the other hand, there are situatinal variables; these external factors will definitely affect one’s
behaviour, but not witout the added influence of one’s person variables, internal factors such as
one’s abilities, habits of mind, expectations, values, and plans (Calhon & Acocella, 1983).
According to the cognitive behaviorists, good adjustment is the ability to interpret events
in a realistic and within reason positive manner, so that the resulting behaviour will be self-
fillfilling rather than self-defeating. The humanists argues that ideal adjustment involves a great
deal more than simply coping,or even coping sucessfully ,with the circumstances of one’s life.
Rather, it means develpoing all one’s potentials to the fulliest. Maslow (1954) felt that the kinds
of adjustment challenges addresssed by psychodynamics and behavioural theories, satisfying
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biological needs, finding friends, learning to respect one were actually only the preparation for
the ultimate challenges, self-actualization defined as the fulfillment of one’s own completely
unique potentials. Viktor frankl agree with the humanisticts that each person’s perceptions and
capabilites are utterly unique and good adjustment means the full reailzation of one’s capabilities
(Calhon & Acocella, 1983).
A study (Tao, Dong, Pratt, Hunsberger, & Pancer, 2000) at new friendships and
adjustment among 1st-year university students, students at six Canadian universities completed
questionnaires that assessed the quality of new friendships and adjustment during first academic
year. In-depth, face-to-face interviews about students' new friendships were conducted with a sub
sample of the students. Results indicated a significant positive relation between quality of new
friendships and adjustment to university; this association was stronger for students living in
residence than for those commuting to university. The transition from high school to college is a
major life change for many adolescents. Attending college presents students with learning
experiences and opportunities for psychosocial development. However, entering college may be a
source of strain and an acute stressor (Gall, Evans, & Bellerose, 2000). Academic demands
increase and new social relations are established (Tao et al.). Students are often uncertain of their
abilities to meet these demands (Dwyer & Cummings, 2001). For students who move away from
home, the transition to college reduces contact and, likely support, from family as well as friends.
Difficulties handling these stressors associated with the transition may lead to decreased