As students transition from high school to university, they must navigate new academic learning environments, develop new social networks, manage multiple new responsibilities, explore and regulate independence, and deal with the stressors that they will encounter. Successful transitioning to university often involves sources of support as well as…

The first year of university is a challenging period of academic and personal development for students. Through phenomenographic analysis of 27 interviews with students who had just completed their first year at university, this study provides valuable insight into students' perceptions of adapting to learning in a university environment. Four…

Nearly 40% of Canadian university students are depressed. However, strong social support may mitigate adverse outcomes for some. This study examined: (1) If students who showed initial depression were more likely to experience poorer end-of-semester well-being (continued depressive symptoms, burnout, and poor social and academic adjustment); and…

Academic integrity concerns related to students' use of technology have renewed calls for teaching, assessment, and learning best practices, including those that involve and empower students. Empowerment is a benefit of developing students' assessment literacies, or how students contextually understand, plan, and undertake assessment and use…

Objective: Our objective was to examine the co-occurrence of sleep problems and emotion dysregulation and its short- and long-term links to depressive symptoms and alcohol use in a sample of university students. Method: Participants included 1132 first-year university students from Southern Ontario (70.5% women). Time 1 data were collected in…

Amidst the increased enrolment of international Chinese English as an additional language (EAL) students in North American universities, scholars have reported on their academic and social experiences in navigating English-medium studies (e.g., Liu, 2016; Zhang & Zhou, 2010). Although informative, some studies focus on EAL learners' perceived…

The transition to university is a stressful period for young adults; however, there has been limited research examining the predictive role of dispositional mindfulness in supporting first-year students' adjustment to university. The current study sought to examine the relative contribution of gender, self-efficacy, perceived social support from…

The present exploratory study evaluated perceptions of actual support received in relation to stress and well-being among first-year students attending Canadian and U.S. higher education institutions (N = 126). Given that traditional assessments of received support account only for how often support was received, the present research examined…

To address feelings of "placelessness" and "not belonging," many colleges and universities have implemented outdoor orientation programs developed to assist students with the transition from home. Outdoor orientation programs, in which students participate in some form of adventure activity away from campus (usually in a…

Objective: To examine the effects of the indicated level of the prevention program "Zenétudes": making a healthy transition to college on anxious and depressive symptoms. Participants: 65 college students participated in the study, from September 2014 to August 2016. From that initial sample, 53 students (ages 16-34) were included in…

One of the challenges that students face during the transition from high school to university is mastering discipline-specific academic expectations and norms. From a language perspective, they may encounter new academic and disciplinary vocabulary, some of which will be metaphoric in nature. However, some students whose first language is not…

The transition from high school to post-secondary education presents challenges for students. Many variables have been identified as significant predictors of student achievement. Resiliency, defined as the ability to overcome challenges and adversity, may be particularly relevant during the adjustment to post-secondary education. This study…

This research examined the simultaneous influences of emotional intelligence, adjustment to university, authoritative versus other parenting style, and high school average on first year university students' grade point average (GPA) via structural equation modeling. The participants were 299 first year students from the social science faculty at…

Retention of students in university or other postsecondary education programs is a common problem for many institutions, with retention from first year to second year of study being particularly problematic in Canada and the United States. A number of factors are known to affect retention, and a number of measures have been identified which can…

Would you like to help your students adjust to university life? Perhaps you are simply interested in allowing them to feel more integrated into a department right from the start of their first year? These were the types of issues that we were hoping to address when we founded the MySci Advisors Program, a peer-mentoring group for first year…