The Adaptation Of College Freshmen And Its Influencing Factors: A Empirical Research And Implications For Education

Adaptation of college freshmen and its influencing factors is one of the key researchtopics in the field of education. A large number of researchers conducted in-depth studies ofthis topic, and revealed the important role of internal and external factors on the universityadaptation. However, these studies are lack of a systems perspective to consider of the internaland external factors, lack of dynamic longitudinal study. The purpose of this study is to buildstructural equation modeling between adaptation and its influencing factors for revealing therelationship between the adaptation of college freshmen and its factors; to investigate theschools of the college freshmen to adapt to the present situation and the dynamic developmentof the variation; to investigate whether personality traits, social support, coping style,self-efficacy effect the relationship between life events and school adjustment; to find aneffective mechanism for improving the adaptive capacity of college freshmen.In the longitudinal study，256freshmen completed the following6scales at initialassessment to assess the level of school adaptation, personality traits, coping style, socialsupport, the level of events and self-efficacy:(1)Chinese college students adapt Scale;(2)Eysenck personality Questionnaire Short Scale for Chinese;(3)trait Coping styleQuestionnaire;(4)social support rating scale;(5)first-year students living event questionnaire;(6)general self-efficacy scale. Researchers returned to the schools to meet with students everytwo months for the half of year. At each of these follow-up assessments, students completeeach of the following questionnaires:(1)Chinese college students adapt Scale;(2)first-yearstudents living event questionnaire. Correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis,structural equation modeling, hierarchical linear models to analyze research data, draw thefollowing conclusions:1There are many factors influencing the university adaptation of college freshmen,influences mechanism is also complicated. The structure equation model of this paper shows:N, E, positive coping, life events, social support and self-efficacy can affect the adaptation ofcollege freshmen through different channels.(1) The N/E can not only directly predict the university adaptation, but also indirectlypredict the university adaptation with the medium factors: social support、positive coping andself-efficacy.(2) The life events can not only directly predict the university adaptation, but alsoindirectly predict the university adaptation with the medium factors: N、E、social support. (3) The social support can not only directly predict the university adaptation, but alsoindirectly predict the university adaptation with the medium factors: positive coping andself-efficacy.(4) The self-efficacy can not only directly predict the university adaptation, but alsoindirectly predict the university adaptation with the medium factor of the positive coping.2The level of university adaptation continues to decline in the first semester, but thelevel begins to pick up in the middle of the second semester along with the familiarity ofcampus life.3N can moderate the relationship between life events and adaptation; but P, E, positivecoping, negative coping, social support and self-efficacy can not moderate the relationshipbetween life events and adaptation.4Educators can improve the adaptive capacity of college freshmen through thefollowing means: understanding the situation of college freshmen’ adaptation; shaping theperfect personality of college freshmen; cultivation the positive coping of college freshmen.