Gender Effects on Adjustment among Freshmen in One Selected Public University

Abstract

The study examined gender effects on adjustment among freshmen in one public university in Kenya. The Cross-sectional survey research design was adopted. The participants comprised of 213 freshmen. The Adjustment Questionnaire was used to measure the adjustment levels of the freshmen. The reliability of Adjustment Questionnaire was ascertained by internal consistency method. The independent-samples t-test was used to test the research hypotheses. The results reported no gender effect on academic adjustment among freshmen [t (211) = -1.639, p =.103]; no gender effect on emotional adjustment [t (211) = 0.268, p=.789]. There was a significant difference in emotional adjustment scores [t (211) = -3.526, p =.001] and on social adjustment scores [t (211) = -3.914, p < 0.05] between the two gender. The study recommends that the university counseling center should develop more gender specific orientation programmes to assist the female freshmen.

Keywords

• gender effect
• adjustment
• freshmen
• public university