issue 1 09 - APS Member Groups - Australian Psychological Society

Resilience and Adjustment57An explanation of the moderatecorrelation between the SACQ and the RSAmay be explained by the findings of Compas etal. (1986), that the time of most vulnerabilitywhen transitioning to university is two weeksafter commencing study. In the present studyparticipants were drawn from a sample ofstudents at varying stages of theirundergraduate studies. It may be that resiliencehas a greater impact on adjustment touniversity throughout these initial two weeksthan the current findings suggest. However,Compas et al. (1986) also show that 64 percentof the variance in psychological problems onentry to university could be predicted threemonths prior, suggesting that adjustment,although fluid, is relatively constant. Follow upresearch may compare the correlation betweenSACQ and RSA scores from studentsthroughout this two week period with theresults from the current study. This wouldallow conclusions to be drawn about theimpact that resilience has on adjustment fornew students, and whether applications of thefindings from the current study may be appliedto the cohort of subsequent students.The second hypothesis, that there is adifference between school leaver and matureentry students adjustment to university, wasnot supported. This indicates that there maynot be as much of a difference between thesetwo student groups as research previouslysuggested (Cantwell et al., 2001; Justice &Dornan, 2001; Taniguchi & Kaufman, 2005),particularly in terms of adjusting to theuniversity environment. These findings mayalso suggest that the adversities experienced byboth groups do not affect the specific constructof adjustment, or that their varying adversitieslead to similar levels of adjustment. It is likelythat school leaver students are increasinglyfinding it necessary to find employment tosupport themselves whist studying. This cohortof students may be experiencing timeconstraints similar to those of mature entrystudents.However, some other possibleexplanations for the finding that there is nodifference between school leaver and matureentry students’ adjustments to university comefrom existing research. Urquhart and Pooley(2007) argue that there are differences betweenmature entry and school leavers experiences interms of adjustment to university, however, theyalso highlight that there are many individualdifferences. In this sample the individualdifferences outweigh the group differences.Cantwell et al. (2001) say that there is amarginal disadvantage for non-traditionalstudents (i.e., mature entry students) studying atuniversity in terms of achievement andadjustment, though there is a positive effect onadjustment for older non-traditional students,particularly females. This may help explain thecurrent findings as chronological age was notthe focus in this study. Those mature entrystudents that are chronologically older may havepositively skewed the results, and the youngeraged mature entry students may in fact be lessadjusted than the general university population.Brooks and DuBois (1995) suggest in theirresearch that in comparison to environmentalvariables, individual variables were related moststrongly to adjustment. Therefore the individualvariables may seem to explain why there is littledifference shown between school leavers andmature entry students in the current sample. Thislack of differences between groups is furthersupported by Taniguchi and Kaufman’s (2005)research, suggesting that being young facilitatesacademic adjustment and success, whichcontradicts the findings from Cantwell et al.(2001) who suggest there is a positive effect onadjustment for older non-traditional students.Taniguchi and Kaufman (2005) suggest thatmore important variables than mode of entryfacilitate adjustment, such as the number ofprior enrolments and high status vocationalbackground. It is these types of individualdifferences that seem to influence one’sadjustment to university.The non support for hypothesis three, thatmature entry students would exhibit higherlevels of resilience than school leavers, suggestsThe Australian Community Psychologist Volume 21 No 1 June 2009