Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (CAVU): development, factor structure and initial validation

Abstract

Student adjustment to college is a stressful change that may influence students’ achievement. This paper presents a questionnaire developed to measure students’ adaptation to college (CAVU) and its psychometric properties among Uruguayan freshmen. The CAVU is grounded in the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) and surveys students’ adaptation in three dimensions: academic, social and institutional. As hypothesized, the three components positively correlate with learning goals, while academic and institutional dimensions negatively correlate with emotional exhaustion, but those are weak associations, with |r| < .30; academic and social adaptation predict academic achievement. Opposite to our prediction, social dimension and emotional exhaustion do not correlate and institutional dimension has a negative effect on achievement.

Keywords

• Adaptation
• University Life
• Transition
• Freshmen