Adjusting to university: The Hong Kong experience

Students' adjustment to the university environment is an important factor in predicting university outcomes and is crucial to their future achievements. University support to students' transition to university life can be divided into three dimensions: academic adjustment, social adjustment and psychological adjustment. However, these relationships have not been studied simultaneously in previous studies. The purpose of this study is to examine the students' perception on the relationships between two of the three dimensions. The study is based on a survey of 265 students from five Hong Kong universities. The findings show that students perceive that (1) social adjustment has a positive impact on academic adjustment; (2) psychological adjustment has a positive impact on academic adjustment; and (3) social adjustment has a positive impact on psychological adjustment. The implications are explored and discussed. © 2012 Association for Tertiary Education Management and the L H Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management.