How Has the Transition to Higher Education Affected Psychology Students - Essay Example

Transition is the passage or change of position from one stage to another. Such is the transition from adolescence to adulthood or from college to university and many others. Emerging markets demand new setoff skills that require tertiary institutions to develop new forms of higher education that make the transition easy. The government plays a critical part when it comes to transition to higher education (Freedheim, 2003). Quality assurance processes such as accountability, assessment, and accreditation have significance when it comes to transition to higher education. Some of the various strategies the government has explored include taking initiatives to ensure quality education in higher education institutions. Former Soviet Union countries and other countries in Europe have experienced transition from lower to higher countries more often than not. These states have regulatory rules that ensure all providers of higher education meet the quality required in higher education (Scanlon, 2011). Countries such as Australia, United States and Great Britain have become one of the leading exporters of higher education to less developed countries. Such is a way of exploring and promoting higher education. Empirical studies also explore transition of students to higher education in different ways. International students and students that go through this transition stage get exposed to diverse cultures (Paulsen, 2013). The exposure to shifting and new cultures, according to empirical studies, impacts on the students motivation and participation. Two broad aspects emerge from these studies. The first aspect is the adaptation aspect and a transformation aspect that captures experiential learning research that leads to academic and personal improvement. Empirical studies show how motivation is key when it comes to transition to higher education. Motivation helps in adaptation processes into new cultural education environments. Reviews show that the relationship students have with one another and their teachers is important in helping in the transition to higher education. Much of the transition has to with the psychological and social impact the student goes through during this period. Thus, the relationships formed are very crucial during this process (Herzog, 2010). Students experience many difficulties in the transition to higher education, for example, themes such as study skills and a sense of alienation come top of the list. In much research, the social and academic aspects of transition get explored separately. Thus, that is where research fails as the academic performance and social development of a student go hand in hand. What are Psychology students’ experiences of their transition to higher education? Methods Transition of students to higher education receives much attention because the environment keeps on changing presenting challenges for adjustment. As a result, students have had a growing number of interests in induction in university life, the first year experience in campus life all with the aim of supporting the smooth transition and subsequently improving their satisfaction and performance (Weiner, 2010). However, it is vague how students experience this process and reflect on it in an in-depth qualitative way. So as to explore this, six students that undertake psychology participated in a structured interview about the experiences they had in transition into higher education. Data collected from the interview got properly analysed and thematically using an inductive approach. The themes identified related to personal growth, lifestyle transitions, social connections development, progression of the transition and the need for preparedness. The interview covered expectations mediated prior to university life. Student transition to university offers challenges to parties involved. For students that move to university, it is a personal investment of cultural capital. It is also a social displacement especially if the student has no prior experience or advice of how to go about the transition (Dunne, 2013). Transition involves the student creating a new identity for himself that will help him or her in coping with the transition to higher education. International studies done on students about transition to university constantly emphasize on the interplay between social and academic circumstances of students. Research studies that analyse student expectations indicate that students have difficulty not knowing what to expect and to predict the university life of a student. Hence, this causes difficulty in the transition to higher education. A qualitative research design got used to identify the experiences of psychology students to higher education. The qualitative research included interviews carried out to six participants who aired out their views on transition to higher education. The six participants included two Caucasian males and four females who were all in between the ages of twenty and thirty one (Dunne, 2013). One of the males was a white male of age twenty and the other one was a white Scottish of age twenty-seven. One of the females was a black Briton of twenty years of age. The other females were a twenty four year old white woman, a nineteen year old white British woman, and a thirty one year old white British woman. The interview comprised of a series of questions that got directed to the participants. The participants got recruited on the basis of their personal experiences during the transition to higher education and others on the expectation they have for that transition. Students’ expectations go hand in hand with their decision making skills and process. Therefore, the interview got carried out with the intention of knowing what expectations psychology students have before they venture into higher education. Un-uniformed decision making can lead to withdrawal from the university and maybe that is because many students feeling a sense of detachment in their first year (Clauss-Ehlers, 2008). The other form of recruitment was through personal experiences. Some of the participants were old enough and had already experienced that transition to higher education and were now narrating about their personal experiences. The participants who had already experiences this transition gave a comprehensive report on how the transition feels. Findings and Discussion The data got collected after conducting an interview for all six participants based on their expectations and experiences. It was digitally recorded and transcribed. The interviewer asked a series of questions that the participants responded accordingly. He then noted down the various responses of the participants and recorded them down for future reference. However, some ethical issues came from the interviews. Some of the participants lacked proper language etiquette. Some participants lacked moral values in general. Thematic analysis is the commonest form of analysis in qualitative research. It pinpoints and puts emphasis on the examining and recording patterns within data. Themes are data that are important to the description of a certain phenomenon associated to a specific research question (Erner, 2009). The themes, therefore, become the category for analysis. The thematic analysis for this procedure uses an inductive approach as all the assumptions in the interview are data-driven. After conducting a series of questions to the participants, one was able to underline the main themes by carrying out a thematic analysis. Some of the main themes that occurred during the interview were social expectations, Academic expectations, Social relationships, Academic skills, Frustration, adjustment and support. Some of these themes are there in the daily lives of individuals and, therefore, they were not difficult to notice. Social expectations are a common theme in traditional and contemporary society. The society usually feels people with some certain expectations that individuals feel necessary to meet, for example, the society normally puts pressure on young men and women to excel in their academic studies, so that they can get good jobs. Consequently, one finds that the students are not doing well because of their future aspirations, nut because of wanting to meet societal expectations (Qin, 2009). The same applies to the participants interviewed. Some of them got into higher education as a result of wanting to meet societal expectations. By wanting to know the preconceived ideas the participants had of transition to higher education, one was able to derive their academic expectations. Some of the participants thought of that transition to be pleasant and also though that thing would get pleasant and easy (Altmaier, 2012). However, that is not the case as they find that the environment is different from the one they were in previously. They find that the expectations they had before they got into higher education are not the same expectations they meet. The other theme that one can derive from the interview is social relationships. The interviewer discovers that it is difficult to construct social relationships on the first year. Students usually experience alienation in their first year of transition to higher education because of the diverse cultures. One is used to a certain environment that changes all of a sudden, and one is left to mingle with people from different cultural backgrounds. As a result, one ends up feeling lonely that leaves one frustrated and depressed. The theme of frustration is also quite evident in the interview as the interviewer speaks of the frustrations of transition to higher education. The participant complains about an issue that she does not know what to do most of the time a problem that faces many students in their first year, in campus. Many students end up feeling frustrated as there is no one to guide the in their daily endeavours as it was in lower education. Whenever e instructor gives work, he does not provide sources where one should search for the work (Keup, 2012). Instead, it is upon the student to go to the library and look for material that might help him or her complete the given assignment. That feeling of helplessness is what causes frustration in students experiences, in higher education. The other evident theme that arises from the interview is support. One of the participants says that if only someone told her what to do, she would do it. Many students, as a result of the freedom and independence in higher education, experience the need of support to guide them through their work in campus (Keup, 2012). Therefore, they need guidance from someone who already experienced the campus life or from a lecture, teacher or instructor. After spending several weeks in campus, one tends to get used to the life and also one tends to interact with people from different cultures and learn about different things; hence, the theme of adjustment. Adjusting is usually a crucial stage when it comes to transition in higher education. Everyone experiences ‘withdrawal symptoms’ when undergoing transition from lower to higher education systems, however, it is the ability of o9ne to adjust to the environment and the situations that come with it, that count. Many students usually adapts after sometimes and even start mingling and making new friends. However, not everyone learns fast and everyone has a different personality. Some people are usual introverts and thus, take longer than usual to adapt to the campus situations. Some other people are extroverts, and thus, automatically take a shorter time to adjust to university conditions due to their social nature. Some of the participants also found it hard to adjust to the teaching methods and techniques used by teachers in higher education. That is a problem many students complain about in their first year in higher education. Students find it difficult to understand and adjust to the teaching methods in University as they used to get spoon-fed in lower education. This transition might be positive or negative on the theme of adjustment. Some participants found it interesting being taught something new every day. That is also a part of the adjustment. The other evident theme that came from the interviews is the theme of self-motivation (Pollak, 2009). One realises that, in higher education, must self motivation as no one will bother pushing the other around. Everyone is given their freedom to use at his or her expense. Therefore, one needs to develop strategies of self-motivation that might help one in the transition. Among the different alternative methods of self-motivation given by the participants were; reading a lot, practising the art of saving, taking part in extra-curricular activities. These strategies help in self-motivation, which improve the overall transition to higher education. Finally, the theme of time management evidently brings itself out in the interviews an important theme in the transition to higher education. Some of the participants when asked what they would do to make their transition life easier, said,"offer advice such as that for time management to mature students," Another participant also said she wishes she organised her time well back while she was in University (Altmaier, 2012). Time is an important factor in higher education. Processes move at lightning speed and if there is no one to guide the other, one can easily get lost. The themes devised come from the response given from the interview. The participants are the one giving the response and are giving them from a personal perspective. These are personal experiences that the participants have had. Conclusion In conclusion, the themes highlighted during the interview were social expectations, academic expectations, social relationships that people build in higher education, and frustration that students develop as a result of the difficulties in higher education. Also, adjustment got talked about like them. Support is also what students need in order to help them adjust quickly to campus life. There were also academic skills and finally the theme of time management. These themes were able to answer the main questions of this study that is what Psychology students experience in their transition to higher education. The participants were able to give their personal experiences and expectations of what they thought campus life would be like. Therefore, one can conclude that every student usually experiences the same thing during s their transition. The underlined themes were similar in almost all of the participants. Suggestions for future research would be to cover the scope of the transition from childhood to senior education and from senior education to higher education so as to be able to distinguish appropriately the stages of transition in life. References Freedheim, D. K. (2003). Handbook of psychology: Vol. 1. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Paulsen, M. B. (2013). Higher education: Handbook of theory and research. Dordrecht: Springer. Herzog, S. (2010). Diversity and educational benefits. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Altmaier, E. M., & Hansen, J.-I. C. (2012). The Oxford handbook of counseling psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press Erner, R. M., & Steinberg, L. D. (2009). Handbook of adolescent psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Qin, D. (2009). Crossing borders: International women students in American higher education. Lanham: University Press of America. Clauss-Ehlers, C. S. (2008). Encyclopedia of cross-cultural school psychology. New York: Springer. Keup, J. R., & Barefoot, B. O. (2012). Peer leadership in higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Goonen, N. M., & Blechman, R. S. (1999). Higher education administration: A guide to legal, ethical, and practical issues. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. Dunne, E., & Owen, D. (2013). The student engagement handbook: Practice in higher education. Weiner, I. B., & Craighead, W. E. (2010). The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Scanlon, L. (2011). "Becoming" a professional: An interdisciplinary analysis of professional learning. Dordrecht [etc.: Springer. Pollak, D. (2009). Neurodiversity in higher education: Positive responses to specific learning differences. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Read More