Adaptação acadêmica, estresse, autoeficácia e habilidades sociais em estudantes universitários

Abstract

At the time of entry to Higher Education, college students have to deal with demands they are not used to, such as a more intense study pace and new social relationships. It is expected that they integrate their capabilities, balancing external demands and personal needs. This process involves individual and contextual variables and is called academic adaptation. Those who feel able to cope with the demands of the University and exhibit socially skilled behavior can cope with stressors in healthier ways. Thus, this research aims to investigate how academic stress, self-efficacy and social skills can impact college students academic adaptation and justify the need for improvement of resources which can facilitate the adjustment to the University and attenuate the possible psychic suffering of this population, avoiding educational evasion. This research was divided into two quantitative studies. Both studies used as instruments the Higher Education Adaptation Questionnaire (QAES), the Academic Stress Scale (EEA), the Self-efficacy Scale in Higher Education and the Social Skills Questionnaire (CHASO). Data collection took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first study aimed to verify the relationship between the variables academic adaptation, stress, self-efficacy and social skills, identify the predictive power of the variables stress, self-efficacy and social skills in academic adaptation and comparing variables between students from public and private institutions. As a result, academic adaptation, self-efficacy and social skills correlated positively with each other. The stress correlated negatively with the other variables. The variables stress, self-efficacy and social skills were able to significantly predict academic adaptation. Students from private institutions had significantly higher means of academic adaptation and self-efficacy, while students from public institutions had significantly higher means of stress. The second study aimed to compare the academic adaptation variables, stress, self-efficacy, and social skills among first- and third-period students and whether self-efficacy and social skills can mediate the relationship between stress and academic adaptation. As a result, third-period students presented statistically higher levels of stress, self-efficacy and social skills were able to mediate the relationship of stress with academic adaptation and self-efficacy explained 86% of the impact of social skills on academic adaptation. It is concluded that the results of the research confirmed the importance of individual and contextual variables in the academic adaptation. Individual variables influenced academic adaptation consistently, regardless of context. The impact of contextual variables was lower or different than expected, and could signal the relevance of the physical environment, face-to-face experiences, and academic expectations.