Measuring Undergraduate Student College Adjustment at an Elite Public Institution: Instrument development and validation

• In Event: 41061 - Section on Latina/o Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: Institutional Policies, Disaster Response, and Latinx Resilience

Abstract

Universities hold significance in bolstering students’ educational pathways. Students’ college experiences may diverge in numerous ways throughout their years from freshman to senior. These experiences can positively or negatively impact students’ academic and social progress, determining retention and graduation rates. To quantify these experiences, I designed and validated an Undergraduate Student College Adjustment Instrument that measures students’ adjustment levels at an elite public institution on the West Coast. When examining undergraduate student adjustment, research traditionally has looked at factors (e.g., social and academic integration) separately; as a result, these studies may have overestimated the significance of certain relationships in college adjustment and/or have only focused on a particular student demographic population. This research contributes to the field of higher education in three ways: first, the development and validation of an instrument measuring college adjustment levels incorporating five domains: academic belonging, student agency, community, faculty and academic advisor support, and equity; second, using
an intersectional lens of students’ identities to examine if this new instrument can be used for transfer and non-transfer students and first generation and non-first generation students. Lastly, it examines the adjustment levels for a historically underrepresented group in higher education, Latinx students, at an elite public institution.

Author

• Arlyn Yire Moreno Luna, University of California-Los Angeles