The development of the scale of transition and academic adaptation

Abstract

The experience lived by new students in universities consists of many facets. During the first year of University, students go through a process of academic adaptation marked by change. This multidimensional and complex period needs to be investigated, especially in the Brazilian context, in which many changes have occurred in the process of the selection procedures to higher education and only few studies have been developed to assess the difficulties of adaptation of new college students. The aim of this study was to develop an instrument to evaluate the experience of academic transition faced by new students. 275 students of two public universities participated in the research. The instrument was inspired by the Academic Transition Experiences Questionnaire – QETA – introduced by Stocker and Faria (2008), in Portugal. The analysis used the SPSS – Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, and principles of factor analysis: principal components extraction techniques and direct Oblimin rotation, with the reliability test, Alpha of Cronbach. The scale was set in 5 dimensions. The results confirm the relevance of some dimensions, such as peers and teachers, and bring evidence of the importance of secondary education for the study on the transition and adaptation in the academic context.