Relationship between Social Support and Loneliness and Academic Adjustment among University Students

چکیده مقاله

Transition from high school to university often causes much stress for most students. In the new university environment, students often face various interpersonal, social, and academic demands, each of which could potentially create stressful situations for most of them. Such changes can lead to specific problems in adjustment. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between social support and loneliness, in one hand, and academic adjustment, in the other hand, among university students. The statistical population includes all students studying at the University of Kashan in 2014-2015 academic year. According to Krejcie and Morgan Table, 320 students were randomly selected via stratified multistage cluster sampling based on gender and faculty. The participants filled out Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), the UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA-LS), and the Academic Adjustment subscale of Baker and Siryk’s Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ). Stepwise Regression Analysis and Pearson Correlation were run in SPSS-22 to analyze the data. The results showed that academic adjustment has a significant positive relationship with the dimensions of social support and a significant negative relationship with loneliness. Moreover, loneliness and social support from family can significantly predict academic adjustment among university students.