Chapter I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Rationale
According to Nancy Schlossberg in her Transition Theory, transition is
defined as any event, or non-event that results in changed relationships,
routines, assumptions, and roles. Transition from school to college is a
sophisticated process for almost all students. It is described by Pascarella and
Terenzini (1991) as a “culture shock involving significant social and psychological
relearning in the face of encounters with new ideas, new teachers, and friends
with quite varied values and beliefs, new freedoms and opportunities, and new
academic, personal and social demands” (pp. 58-59). Students who make the
transition from high school to college are placed into a strange situation (Kenny,
1987) that entails a new living environment and the possibility of reorganizing
new attachments with peers, professors, romantic partners, and other
relationships. Researchers have conceptualized the experiences encountered
by college students as a stressful life event (Schroevers, Kraaij, & Garneski,
2007), a period of adjustment (Crockett, Iturbide, Stone, & McGinley, et al., 2007;
Wodka & Barakat, 2007), and as a college transition (Brissette, Scheier, &
Carver, 2002; Fisher & Hood, 1987; Larose & Boivin, 1998) that is comparable to
a second “strange situation” (Kenny, 1987). This transition period has resulted in
a number of difficulties associated with maladaptive adjustment, such as
homesickness and social anxiety (Urani, Miller, Johnson, & Petzel, 2003),
symptoms of depression (Schroevers, et al., 2007), and anxiety and
absent-mindedness (Fisher & Hood, 1987).
Globally, thousands of student’s head off to college with hopes of earning
a degree every year. Moving to college requires cultural adjustment (Hunter and
Murray, 2007). With exterior changes, such as going to college, values and
beliefs are challenged and individuals become defensive when experiencing a
new culture. However, even with the said changes, students still need to find a
way to cope up with their sudden change of lifestyle. Although students
understand the concept of going to school, once in college, life is much different
and requires greater change. Campus culture, student’s personal backgrounds
and experiences, and each individual situation are factors that affect how college
students adapt to life on their own.
This episode didn’t exclude the students in Cebu Normal University
(CNU). The departure is a significant milestone in the life of a family and ushers
in a time of separation and transition, requiring an adjustment on the part of the
parents, the college-bound teenager, and the whole family. Being a Filipino, we
are known for our tight emotional attachment or relationship with our parents.
Whether the student lives at home or goes away to attend college, the move
represents an emotional separation from both parents and child. This phase of
life, especially when the student moves from home, is often referred to as “the
empty nest”. Nevertheless, the child must take the step that marks the symbolic
end of their childhood.
It is then the desire of the researcher in this study to investigate and find if
differences in college adjustment existed for participants based on their gender,
race and/or ethnicity, community of origin, and college living arrangement. It is
hoped that through this study, the researcher might help in finding ways to
alleviate stress for the students in college transition.

Theoretical Framework
This study is anchored on the Transition Theory of Nancy Schlossberg.
Schlossberg, as a professor of counseling, has studied life transitions of all kinds.
Her mission is to help people cope creatively with the difficulties of life. It was
originated because she believed a need existed to develop a systematic
framework that would facilitate an understanding of adults in transition and direct
them to the help they needed to cope with the “ordinary and extraordinary
process of living” (Evans, Forney, Guido, Patton & Renn, 2010, p. 213).
Schlossberg in her theory found out that by offering tips about ways people have
successfully negotiated life’s ups and downs led to developing a model for
helping people handle transitions more effectively. Schlossberg views transition
as an integrated way. One type of transition according to Schlossberg’s Theory is
the “Anticipated Transition”. This includes the emotions to both the parents and
child in their separation: feelings of emptiness, handling situations on their own,
and being able to solve problems on their own without the full guidance of their
parents characterize this stage of separation.

Figure 1. A Schematic Presentation of the Theoretical Conceptual

Framework
 Consequently, transition to college marks emotional separation to both
parents and child; and marks overall levels of adjustment and degree of
attachment to college for first-time, full-time freshmen. Adjustments can be
difficult when parents or the child are no longer needed in the same ways, both of
them are less privy to every aspect of their life, both of them no longer know
every detail of their whereabouts, etc. A transition theory perspective focuses on
“life events entailing change” (Schlossberg et al., 1995, p. 18). Assuming this
definition, the process of graduating from high school and encountering new and
different experiences is unequivocally a transition that needs to be understood.
Being on their first time in college, students can encounter challenges that they
need to adjust and cope with. This life event greatly affects one’s life and
emotions. It can be stressful to analyze new social norms, learn a new set of
behaviors, new environment, and consider adopting a particular identity and
group affiliation. This research is then addressed to clearly know and understand
the perception of millennials towards this transition. The point of view of the
students about transition is very important to understand how they are affected
by their changing life events depending on the impact of the transition itself. The
researchers aim to assist someone, specifically the students in navigating
through transitions by identifying how much this transition changes their lives as
well as how they are able to cope up with these phenomena; and suggests
having a thorough one-to-one interview with the millennials considering their
internal and external differences. Nevertheless, the entire process of transition
can be used as a guide in student affairs to facilitate all stages of college student
development, in how they interpret their college experiences and use that
knowledge to further develop.

Statement of the Problem

The main purpose of this study is to examine and understand how
millennials, particularly CNU students, navigate their transition to college as well
as their coping styles.
Specifically, the study sought to answer the following questions:

1. Is there a significant relationship on how millennials deal with their

transition to college in accordance to their internal and external
differences?

2. How do millennials cope up during their transition to college?

2.1. What are their coping styles?

3. To what extent do millennials feel when they are slowly starting to

separate and individuate themselves from their parents?

4. What coping styles can be proposed?

Hypothesis
H1: There is no significant relationship on how millennials deal with their
transition to college in accordance to their internal and external differences.

Definition of Terms
Transition any event or nonevent that results in changed relationships,
routines, roles, or assumptions.
Coping any response used to prevent, alleviate, or respond to an event or
stressful situation.
Anticipated Transition refers to scheduled and expected life events that
can be predicted by the individual.
College transitions the period of preparing to apply for acceptance into a
four-year college.
Stress the result of a struggle to reestablish homeostasis following
change.
Students currently enrolled full-time or part-time in an institution.
Millennials cohort as consisting of individuals born between 1982 and
2004.
Lived experiences these are the personal experiences of the subjects of
this study.
 Internal Factors refer to the inner influence that can affect a person such
as gender and age.
External Factors refer to the outside influences that can impact a person
such as culture and family background.

Significance of the Study

The outcome of this research endeavor is greatly important and useful
insight to help formulate a better treatment plan for undergraduate freshmen
college students in coping up with unfamiliar situations. This study will determine
whether differences in college adjustment existed for participants based on their
gender, race and/or ethnicity, community of origin, and college living
arrangement. Furthermore, this study is needed to help understand the transition
experience. It is important to grasp the characteristics of the millennials and their
experiences encountered, particularly in relation to the high school to college
transition.
 Chapter 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Researchers in higher education generally agree that the adjustment of
the students to college is affected by many factors and experiences. The coping
responses of the students to these factors and experiences is known in the
literature as student's adjustment.
Vincent Tinto's theory of student departure, also known as the Student
Integration Model, is well recognized and cited in the literature. According to
Braxton, Tinto's model enjoys near paradigmatic stature in the study of college
student departure. The theory evaluates students' academic and social
integration into their new college environment.
Tinto asserted that, "In a very real sense persistence depends on the
ability of students to depart from the norms of their former communities. First
time students leave their familiar home environment with a high comfort level and
move to the unfamiliar college campus environment with a low comfort level.
Separation from a comfortable environment is known to cause stress for students
and is an acknowledged negative factor of college persistence.
According to Tinto, persistence in college requires individuals to adjust,
both socially and intellectually, to the new and sometimes quite strange world of
college. Most persons, even the ablest and socially mature, experience some
difficulty in making that adjustment. Tinto asserted that the difficulty often arises
either from students' inability to separate themselves from past associations or
from their need to adjust to the intellectual and social demands inherent in the
new college environment. Tinto asserted that there were three stages in this rite
of passage to college. Those stages were separation, transition, and
incorporation.
According to Elkins, Braxton, and James, "Tinto extends these stages to
the process through which college students establish membership in the
communities of a college or university in general, and to the case of early student
departure from college in particular. In the separation stage, an incoming college
student will disassociate from his or her former communities. Most often those
communities are based on family, high school, and residence affiliations. After
starting the process of separation, the student will enter into the transition stage.
During the transition stage, he or she hasn't fully accepted the norms, values,
and behaviors of the new community, while at the same time he or she hasn't
fully let go of the norms, values, and behaviors of the old community. The
separation and transition stages occur rather early in a student's college
experience and are followed by the incorporation stage. During this final stage,
he or she finds new norms, values, and behaviors and joins new communities
that espouse those characteristics. Moving through these stages can be difficult
for some students. Students enter the transition stage after separating from their
precollege environments before fully integrating into the college community.
During this transition stage, students may experience high levels of stress,
anxiety, and loneliness caused by the separation from family and previous
friends. Students can become overwhelmed by too much stress, which is known
to interfere with their ability to successfully adjust to college.
According to Tinto, students are in a state of "normlessness" in the
transitioning stage. They have dismissed the norms and beliefs of past
associations without having integrated into their new community and without yet
accepting the norms and beliefs of that new community. Tinto found that
"normlessness" might lead students to withdraw from college before integration is
complete. Tinto asserted that "the stress and sense of loss and bewilderment, if
not desolation, that sometimes accompany the transition to college can pose
serious problems for students ... students often flounder and withdraw without
having made a serious attempt to adjust to the life of college.
Students often begin their college experience with excitement, anxiety,
aspirations, and hope. They also struggle with the fear of failure while
simultaneously pushing themselves to excel. Students are sometimes faced with
dilemmas in their first year of college in deciding whether they should continue at
the institution they are attending or withdraw. Students encounter particular
opportunities and face challenges as they go through their first year of college.
How students resolve those challenges and the degree to which they engage
themselves in the opportunities is known in the literature as the student
adjustment process. According to Swartz and Martin, adjustment problems come
from both personal and environmental factors
Several identified causes explaining why students who withdraw have
more adjustment difficulties include reports of experiencing unrealistic goals,
stress, loneliness, family obligations, and financial difficulties. In their study of the
Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ), Baker, McNeil, and Siryk
found empirical evidence to support the converse relationship between social,
personal, and emotional adjustment from college. Students with higher SACQ
social and personal-emotional adjustment subscales scores experienced fewer
withdrawals from college. This research reinforces Tinto's observations that
institutions that provide academic, social, and personal support programs and
services increase the likelihood that students will persist and graduate. Tinto
stated, "Students are more likely to persist and graduate in settings that provide
clear and consistent information about institutional requirements and effective
advising about the choices students have to make regarding their programs of
study and future career goals. Academic adjustment to college is one factor in
student persistence.
Academic adjustment refers to students' success in coping with the
educational demands associated with attending college. Numerous studies have
supported a clear relationship between students' persistence and their first-year
academic performance. Students who are less successful adjusting to the
various academic demands of college may have lower grade point averages, be
on academic probation, feel a lack of control over their academic future, and
have a less realistic self-appraisal. The academic adjustment factors of student
application and academic environment are explored as the primary basis for
understanding how students adjust academically. The literature describes that
academic difficulties develop from students' difficulty adjusting to college
life—new friends, new responsibilities, and new independence. According to
Tinto, only a small percentage of students who drop out of college are
academically dismissed. Most student withdrawals occur without any formal
directive from the institution. The student's social and academic experiences
within the institution, and the extent to which these factors are not integrated for
the student, account for a much larger percentage of students who drop out of
college than those who experience academic dismissal. In their study of college
student adjustment, Baker and Schultz found that students who had low
adjustment and performance expectations of themselves did not perform as well
academically and were less likely to earn their degree on time than those
students who had higher adjustment and performance expectations. The findings
of the Baker and Schultz study were consistent with the Martin, Swartz-Kulstad,
and Madson study of psychosocial factors related to college adjustment among
first-year undergraduate students, where it was found that higher levels of
academic self-confidence significantly predicted more successful adjustment to
college. Leong and Bonz also found in their research study that academic
adjustment and personal/emotional adjustment were related to student’s level of
coping strategies.
Academic learning communities have been found to have a positive effect
on student retention. An important component of successful learning
communities is the co-enrollment of students in several courses. Co-enrollment
helps students quickly create a close bond with classmates in an academic
context, which often results in a shared commitment to achieve academic
success. Furthermore, collaborative learning is a natural outcome in many
academic learning communities. In learning communities, students often discover
that they share their academic success with other student members, regardless
of differences in race and/or ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic background.
Researchers, including Pascarella and Terenzini, Tracey and Sedlacek, and
Petrie and Russell, found that several variables are stronger than academics in
predicting a student's adjustment to college experience. The variables fit three
primary categories: social, personal-emotional, and goal/institutional
commitment. Social adjustment factors relate to a student's integration into the
"interpersonal-societal demands inherent in the college experience."
Personal/emotional adjustment factors relate a student's sense of psychological
and physical well-being. Goal/institutional commitment factors relate to a
student's commitment to his or her educational goals and degree of attachment
to the particular institution he or she is attending.
A student's individual experiences while attending college have a
significant effect on what and how much he or she learns and develops. Social
adjustment refers to a student's ability to effectively manage the interpersonal
societal demands associated with the college experience. Students who are less
successful adjusting to the various social demands may be viewed by others as
having poor social skills and may have difficulty separating from home and
establishing social autonomy. They often experience more social distress, and
experience feelings of having nothing to do socially. The social adjustment
factors of college environment, involvement, and relationships with others are
explored as the primary basis for understanding how students adjust socially.
Tinto reported, "The frequency and quality of contact with faculty, staff,
and other students is an important independent predictor of student persistence."
It is in the freshman year when students struggle the most to belong with others
in a new campus environment and when student involvement matters the most.
According to Astin, "The student's peer group is the single most potent source of
influence on growth and development during the undergraduate years. Students
who successfully establish new peer relationships in college have more positive
college adjustment experiences. Terenzini et al. report that peers serve an
important role in supporting and challenging each other to succeed in their new
environment. Peer relationships built around academic functions and settings,
such as study groups and learning communities, are known to positively affect
students' academic adjustment. Martin, SwartzKulstad, and Madson studied
psychosocial factors related to college adjustment among first-year
undergraduate students and found that faculty and peer support significantly
predicted more successful adjustment to college.
For college administrators, understanding how students adjust personally
and emotionally to the college experience can be beneficial in building support
programs. For students, attending college is an opportunity for personal growth
and development. However, for some, the initial experience can be overwhelming
and beyond their coping skills. Personal-emotional adjustment refers to a
student's sense of psychological and physical well-being and the degree to which
he or she is experiencing psychological distress. Students who have difficulty
with personal-emotional adjustment are more likely to seek campus counseling
services, rely more heavily on others for emotional support, experience
conflictual dependence on parents, and experience more anxiety and
depression. In their study of college student adjustment, Baker and Schultz found
that students who had low adjustment and performance expectations were more
likely to seek counseling services. Baker and Siryk reported that psychological
distress factors (e.g., depression, homesickness, mental stress) negatively
affected student attachment to college. Positive psychological factors (e.g.,
positive self-esteem, positive self-concept, positive social network) were found to
positively affect student attachment to college. Foley Nicpon et al. studied the
relationship of loneliness and social support with academic persistence decisions
for 401 college freshmen. They found that less loneliness and more social
support predicted more positive college persistence decisions. The
personal-emotional adjustment to college factor is closely related in the literature
to other college adjustment factors such as academic and social adjustment.
Researchers Grant-Vallone et al. analyzed survey data from 118 college students
to describe the relationship between self-esteem, family and peer support, and
academic and social adjustment. They found that students who reported higher
levels of self-esteem and more peer support had better academic and social
adjustment. In addition, the students in Grant-Vallone et al.’s study who used
student support services and counseling reported a higher level of social
adjustment.
The research on gender and student adjustment is mixed. Tinto found
evidence that the college experience is somewhat different for females than it is
for males. External pressures negatively affect educational participation more
often for females than for males. Females are more likely to depart voluntarily,
while males are more likely to wait until they are forced out for academic
reasons. Habley and McClanahan found that females were more committed to
the institutions they attended and less likely to leave than males. Pascarella and
Terenzini found an indirect gender effect on persistence through initial
institutional commitment. However, Gerdes, Savino, and Harris reported no
differences between males and females and their level of commitment towards
their educational goal or attachment to the institution they were attending. A
recent study exploring gender differences using Chickering's psychosocial theory
of college student development found men and women differed in their
development of mature interpersonal relationships at the beginning of their first
year. Female students were more tolerant of and more accepting of others of
different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures, races and ethnicities, lifestyles, and
appearances during their first year of college than men were after four years of
development during college.
Researchers who used the SACQ to better understand how gender
affected college student adjustment found mixed results. In the course of
seventeen semesters of SACQ administrations at Clarke University and Holy
Cross College, SACQ authors Baker and Siryk found no gender differences for
students' perceived adjustment to the academic demands of college. However,
females scored significantly higher on the social adjustment subscale and males
scored significantly higher on the personal/emotional adjustment subscale.
Bamett, Biener, and Baruch found that gender differences existed among
men and women and how they processed stress. Specifically, males are more
inclined to use problem-focused coping strategies than females. Leong and Bonz
found no statistically significant differences between male and female students'
personal-emotional or attachment/goal commitment adjustment scores.
Furthermore, Leong and Bonz stated, the impact of gender socialization on
measured psychological differences apparently has no effect in terms of
freshmen self-reported experiences of anxiety and depression as measured by
the personal emotional adjustment scale, and satisfaction with their particular
college which is measured by the attachment/goal commitment scale. While not
statistically significant, Leong and Bonz found that there was a trend in which
females were better adjusted academically and socially than males.
Theorists Bean and Eaton assert that psychological processes of
adjustment described in their model occur regardless of gender and ethnicity. In
an empirical test of his model, Bean found, "Institution quality and opportunity for
men and, excluding satisfaction, for women were the two most important
variables influencing commitment." According to Bean, even satisfied men left
the university, whereas satisfied women were less likely to leave and reported a
stronger commitment to the institution. Among female college students, Rice
found that a relationship exists between the degree of parental attachment and
level of success separating from home and adjusting to their new community.
Female college students with high parental attachment had more difficulty
separating from home and adjusting to their new college community. This does
not appear to be the case among male college students. The research is divided
regarding whether or not gender impacts college student persistence or
performance. In some studies, gender did not predict performance or
persistence.154 However, other studies found females academically
outperforming males. Several studies found females also out- persisted males,
while one other study found males out-persisted females.
Minority race and ethnic groups have historically been underrepresented
in higher education. Even so, the number of minority students attending college
has increased significantly over the past twenty-nine years and is expected to
continue to increase into the future.
Minority students have the best chance of remaining in college when they
enter college with good high school grades in college preparatory courses, have
solid study habits, and have confidence in their ability to do well academically.
Students who come from historically underrepresented ethnic and cultural groups
face specific challenges during their college career.166 Tierney posits that ethnic
and racial minority students withdraw from college because they feel forced to fit
in and accept the dominant culture. Furthermore, they often are left to navigate
through the "fitting in" process by themselves.
A first-time college student experiences new social, academic, and personal
challenges. These challenges are known to be greater for ethnic and racial
minority students. According to Tinto, ethnic and racial minority postsecondary
students, especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, tend
to face greater problems in meeting the academic demands of college work, in
finding a suitable niche in the social and intellectual life of the college, and
perhaps in obtaining sufficient financial resources. Academic difficulties,
incongruence, isolation, and perhaps finances seem to be more severe for them
than for students generally.
Tinto found that students who develop a sense of connectedness and
belongingness are more likely to persist in college. Tinto reported that this was
especially true for underrepresented racial and ethnic students, who perceived a
sense of being marginalized in the campus community. Underrepresented
students may find it challenging to fit in and difficult to join formal and even
informal social and academic groups. Some college campuses have no social or
academic groups for some underrepresented ethnic and minority student
populations, which can create unwelcoming and lonely campus experiences.
Tinto posits that ethnic and racial minority students are more successful
when they find membership in at least one community on campus. Adan and
Felner found that minority students are often less attached to the institution they
are attending. According to Kuh and Love, membership in affinity groups and
ethnic enclaves increases the level of social engagement and attachment
experienced by racial and ethnic minorities.
Postsecondary students from rural communities faced significant
challenges getting to college. On a national level, a higher percentage of children
living in rural communities do so in poverty compared to those living in urban
communities. College-bound individuals from rural communities often come from
educational settings which offered fewer core academic classes and with fewer
teachers who were highly qualified. As a result, students from rural communities,
on average, score below students from urban settings in standardized tests in
both mathematics and reading. Fewer adults living in rural communities have
earned a high school diploma, enrolled in college, and earned a bachelor's
degree, compared to adults living in urban communities.
The literature and research concerning rural students and their adjustment
to college is very limited. Astin's research from 1975 asserts that rural students
are more likely than urban students to drop out of college. Murphy, in 1984, found
that rural students used a more passive coping style overall, were more likely to
use a passive-withdrawal coping style, and experienced more stress overall.
Murphy posited that rural students experienced greater problems adjusting to
college than urban students because of the differences in coping styles. In 2000,
Wright found that rural students often come from environments with fewer role
models and appear to be predisposed to experiencing greater difficulties in their
adjustment to college. However, even with greater difficulties, Wright found that
rural and urban students obtained similar adjustment scores. According to
Wright, rural students experienced higher levels of attachment to parents than
urban students, and he posited that characteristic "buffered them against the
environmental factors allowing them to adjust better to college than would be
predicted”.
Students from low-income or low socio-economic families are also at a
disadvantage when transitioning to college. According to Fulton (1996) and Lee
(2002), students from low-income families are more likely to receive lower quality
early education experiences which can lead to lower rates of high school
graduation, lower rates of postsecondary attendance, higher special education
placements and lower employment rates as teens and young adults. Quality
academic preparation for college is another goal of the Early College High
School which aims to accomplish with smaller class sizes and recruitment of
highly qualified instructors. Furthermore, students from low-income families are
at a disadvantage at all levels of education. In their early years, high-income
children have a 60% higher average cognitive score than low-income children
(Lee & Burkam, 2002). The lack of achievement continues through elementary
school with lower scores on standard assessments from students in low-income
schools (Valdez, 2009). This leads to disparity in opportunities for higher
education as well, with students from the top quarter income level being seven
times as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree as students from families in the
bottom income quartile (Rampey et al., 2009). Some researchers believe that
students from low-income communities are penalized by hidden funding gaps in
the education system (Hall & Ushomirsky, 2010). Often high-poverty schools with
smaller budgets cannot afford to employ more expensive teachers with more
experience and education (Hall & Ushomirsky, 2010). These high quality
teachers are often attracted to low-poverty schools offering higher salaries.
Moreover, studies have found that students from poor school districts are more
likely to have teachers that do not have a strong background in the subject they
are teaching (Barton, 2003; “What matters most,” 1996). Haycock and Jerald
(2002) make the following comment about the importance of having highly
qualified teachers in the classroom, especially for students that need additional
support,
A decade ago, some researchers believed that what students learned was
largely a factor of their family income or parental education, not of what schools
did. However, recent research has turned these assumptions upside down. What
matters most is good teaching.
Therefore, this disparity in highly qualified educators can stifle the
potential of capable students that have the unfortunate fate of being at a
low-income school. Furthermore, studies have found that students from
low-income schools are provided with a less challenging curriculum than
students at middle or high-income schools which further inhibits low-income
students from reaching higher levels of academic achievement (Barton, 2003;
Haycock & Jerald, 2002). Haycock and Jerald (2002) suggest several ways that
schools can improve the academic achievement of students from low-income
schools. One recommendation is to provide a more challenging curriculum for
these students in order to increase motivation (Barton, 2003; Haycock & Jerald,
2002). Providing a challenging college preparatory curriculum, along with
enrollment in actual college courses throughout the program is the mission of the
Early College High School Initiative. The added challenge of these courses could
be exactly what the students need to stay interested in their education. The
added motivation of earning college credit could further motivate students in this
school where over eighty percent of the students are from low-income families
(“The Early College High School Initiative,” 2007). It should also be noted that
this added challenge may also deter some students who are not ready for the
rigor and pace of college courses (Bressoud, 2007).
 Chapter III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The study employed a qualitative quantitative method. The qualitative
method was used to gather information and describe the perception of millennials
towards their transition to college. To investigate, the researcher conducts a
survey in terms of their profile of millennials social adjustment, academic
adjustment, personal-emotional adjustment, and attachment. The data gathered
are tabulated for proper interpretation. The quantitative method was utilized to
reveal the weighted mean for each subscale.

Research Environment
The site of interest for this study is Cebu Normal University (CNU), located
in Osmeña Boulevard, Cebu City. It is a state research university in the
Philippines and one of the oldest educational institutions in Cebu that was
established in 1902. CNU houses the three big colleges of the school: College of
Nursing (CN); College of Teacher Education (CTE); and College of Arts and
Sciences (CAS).
The College of Nursing and College of Teacher Education were awarded
the Level 4 Accreditation by the Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and
Universities in the Philippines (AACUP). The university is Region 7’s Center of
Teacher Development and in August 2009 it became Region 7’s right Nursing
Excellence and is still sailing with flying colors until the present.

Research Respondents
The respondents were the first year college of Cebu Normal University
(CNU). Due to the implementation of the K-12 Curriculum, the university only
offered Bachelor of Elementary Education Major in Special Education, Bachelor
of Science in Mass Communication and Bachelor of Tourism Management for
first years. Thus this limits our respondents to the first year BEED-SPED, BSMC,
BTM students. Each course has only one block which comprises, , , and
students respectively.

Research Instruments
Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) and an open-ended
question were administered during the entire duration of the research study (see
Appendix A and B for the questionnaires). It is a means of measuring adjustment
to college (Baker & Siryk, 1984) that came to be used by many other researchers
in a wide variety of studies. The earlier of these investigations produced a body
of information that permitted detailed evaluation of the SACQ, in particular its
reliability and validity, and this information was summarized in a test manual
intended for SACQ users.

SACQ comprises 67 verbal-statement items. Each addresses a facet of

the experience of adjusting to college and the demands that characterize it. The
sum of scores for the 67 items (the full scale score) provides an index of overall
adjustment, but more important to the definition of the construct is the fact that 65
of the items subdivide into four subscales addressing different aspects of the
adjustment. Three of the subscales may be considered as primary in the sense
that they contain no overlapping items, and are intended to measure, separately,
academic, social, and personal-emotional adjustment. A fourth subscale
contains some items exclusive to itself and other items shared with two of the
primary subscales, and assesses the student's commitment to the college
experience, especially attachment to the particular institution attended.

Data Gathering Procedure

The researcher will ask to conduct a survey with the respondent. When
that permission was granted, the researcher will orient the respondent and give a
brief discussion about the data expected from them as well as the procedure in
the conduct of the study. The respondents were given an assurance that privacy
and confidentiality is highly respected and were encouraged to answer the
questions with utmost honesty as this will affect the results of the study.

Treatment of Data
The researcher encoded, summarized and tabulated the data gathered
that are subjected for statistical interpretation and analysis. The researcher used
three statistical ways to address the problems stated in the study.
First, the use of Thematic analysis of the data gathered from the
respondent’s answers on the open-ended questions that was based on the
perceptions and views of the respondents.
Second is determining the weighted mean of the four subscales with an
interval parameter limit shown below:

Range of Scores Response Category Interpretation

7.00-9.00 Strongly Agree Very High
5.00-7.00 Agree High
3.00-5.00 Disagree Low
1.00-3.00 Strongly Disagree Very Low

Lastly, to reveal the relationship between the variables, the researchers

made the best use of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).