Understanding student transition in higher education: Self-efficacy beliefs and perceived social support
Understanding student transition in higher education: Self-efficacy beliefs and perceived social support

Summary/Abstract: Students’ transition to the university is a major challenge for the most of them, the new life stage arises with many changes and difficulties, requiring multiple skills on a wide range, from cognitive to social and emotional, in order to assure a successful adjustment. The aim of the paper is to address relevant issues in students' transition in higher education: students' perceptions on the difficulties they encountered, self-assessment of the adaptation to the new environment, and the reasons that might underlie their academic drop-out; also, the study aims to analyze the relationship between academic self-efficacy, general self-efficacy and students' perceived social support. The 78 participants were students in different universities in Romania. The results show that the great majority of the students consider that they are well-adjusted to the academic work, that they are satisfied with their choice regarding the study programme, being convinced that they will be prepared to work in their chosen field. Also, the correlations between global self-efficacy and self-efficacy ratings for different areas of academic activity are positive. This study makes some contributions to the topic of students’ perception regarding their transition to university, but certain limitations should be taken into consideration.

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