Effectiveness of the college adjustment program developed for college freshmen

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of the First Year College Adjustment Program on the new students' adjustment levels to university. For this purpose, a psychoeducation program has been prepared to support the freshmen' adjustment to university. To measure the effectiveness of the experimental procedure used in the research, University Life Scale (ULS), The Student-University Match (SUM) Questionnaire and The Student Perception of University Support and Structure (SPUSS) were also adapted to Turkish by the researcher and utilized in this study. The experimental group also received open-ended Qualitative Research Questions Forms. Monitoring tests were conducted after the last test run was carried out three months ago. Research results showed a significant increase of adjustment levels of the experimental group students those who participated in the First Year Adjustment program. The significance of the difference between the adjustment to university environment, emotional adjustment, personal adjustment, academic adjustment, social adjustment scores were determined. Opposite-Sex Relationships subscale difference is not significant. There was also a significant increase of university-student match score, university-student match, social cohesion, personal and environmental adjustment subscales' in the experimental group compared to the control group. SPUSS results of adjustment participants have shown that levels were the same in both groups. But after a while of the experimental procedure, experimental group has shown a significantly higher total-score in SPUSS. When the qualitative findings of the research were examined, they were found to be supportive of the theoretical frame of the research, related works and quantitative findings.