The relationship between student adjustment and academic success among first-year students at a South African higher education institution

Abstract

Student adjustment to tertiary education has been identified as a complex topic encompassing students’ academic adjustment, social adjustment, personal-emotional adjustment, and institutional attachment. Understanding whether or not student adjustment is related to academic success would be a starting point to better understand academic success in the South African context. Considering inequality in access to tertiary education, understanding whether or not student adjustment is related to academic success could inform intervention or more inclusive orientation programmes to facilitate the achievement of academic success through better-adjusted students. The afore mentioned concepts of adjustment are measured by the Student Adjustment to College Questionnaire (SACQ). A convenience method was utilised to sample humanities students at a University in Gauteng. The students were able to fill out a self-report questionnaire on their academic success and the SACQ which measures all four elements of student adjustment. These four elements, which form four subscales of the SACQ, were all related to academic success. It was found that there are no significant correlations between the four SACQ subscales and academic success. Therefore, further analyses were conducted to explore whether other conclusions could be drawn about the variables under study. These analyses were multiple regression analyses and logistic regression analyses. Student adjustment, however, was reported as low in relation to normative scores of the SACQ. It is recommended that institutions look into possible interventions that may aid better adjustment, considering diversity of South African students’ contexts.