Brescia Psychology Undergraduate Honours Theses

Date of Award

Spring 4-8-2024

Program

Psychology

Supervisor

Dr. John Mitchell

Abstract

The current study investigated personal (i.e., the Big Five personality traits, academic resilience, and academic engagement) and social characteristics (sense of school belongingness) as predictors of first-year students' transition to university. The study also sought to create a regression model that demonstrated the relative importance of each factor concerning a student's transition while also investigating which factors best predict one's transition overall. The sample consisted of 81 female and two non-binary-identifying students at a university in London, Ontario. A Pearson correlation analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between a student's sense of school belongingness and a successful transition to university. Additionally, academic resilience and engagement were positively and significantly correlated with a successful transition. Of all the Big Five personality traits, neuroticism was the only trait with a significant negative relationship with a student's success in adjusting to higher education. A multiple regression analysis revealed that the combination of neuroticism, academic resilience, sense of school belongingness, and number of schools attended were the best factors predicting a student's success in transitioning to university.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS