Stress and university adaptation: Mediating psychology processes

Strictly speaking this thesis tries to (1) define the virtually stressing nature of the normative crisis "entering the university", (2) fix the adaptation features of young students paying special attention to the particular ways in which the age transition is managed, which the type of stressing incidence is and which are the bodily variables intervening in the resolution of crises in any of their manifestations, (3) class the new university students into types depending on their behavioural responses to socio-institutional demands. Following the comparative method and with a sample of 282 individuals from the University of Deusto, Bilbao, the empiric intervention has recourse to an explanatory-descriptive design in order to analyse two groups of first-year students differing in the nature of the stressing factor received: 1 st year of IT - hard stimulation and 1st year of Philosophy and Education Science - weak stimulation. These two subgroups are observed under the prism of their integration processes bearing in mind their personal welfare indicators and academic success in contrast to psycho-social stress disorders and academic inhibition. The transaction "entering the university-student-adaptation responses" is undertaken from the intervening variables (a) psycho-sociological attributes and (b) inner-personal aspects: competition motivation, auto-determination, self-concept, academic self-efficacy, locus of control, cause attributions, affectivity, anxiety, general intelligence, study habit and the perception of the university environment. The information collected has been treated with interdependence methods, using the multiple correspondence factorial analysis and the conglomerate analysis, once the collective under study has been described and differentiated. The results show that (1) there appears concomitance between the event "entering the university" and the presence of adaptation factors; (2) there exist differences within the interdependent adaptation dysfunctions with regard to the fact of entering the university associated with the stressing kind; (3) three groups of psychological mediators intervening in the processes of psycho-institutional adaptation are isolated; (4) four types of students are recognised: "healthy", "non-adapted to the task", "vulnerable" and "stressed"; (5) the university atmosphere is perceived as the place of future professional formation in which some deficiencies are highlighted in the help on behalf of their lecturers and the organisation confusion.