Adaptation of first-year students: the first results of a socio-psychological survey

In the first decade of March, the Department of Theory and Methods of General and Vocational Education of the Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology of PetrSU (E.A. Raevskaya, Ph.D., Associate Professor and N.N. Shevchenko, Ph.D. and the difficulties of adaptation of first-year students studying in pedagogical specialties in 8 educational institutes of PetrSU.
In total, 184 students took part in the continuous survey.

The study of the peculiarities of the adaptation process of freshmen has been conducted at PetrSU since 2013. In 2021, for the first time, students were asked to take an online survey using a google form. The results showed that the freshmen highly appreciated their adaptability: 94% of the respondents believe that they have completely managed to integrate into the student life of PetrSU. Earlier studies – in full-time education – showed from 16 to 21% of maladjusted students, this year it is only 6-10% of freshmen. The fact that students of pedagogical specialties have mastered well at the university in the new format of education is confirmed by the fact that 75% of respondents rated their first semester at PetrSU as “excellent” and “good”. Every fourth student assessed his first semester as “excellent” which is three times higher than the results obtained in earlier studies. At the same time, 81% of freshmen are completely satisfied with the distance learning format, and 61% believe that distance learning is no less effective than full-time education.