A Three-Dimensional Analysis of First-Year Student Adjustment Difficulties Evidence from 600 Questionnaires and a Case Study

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_12How to use a DOI?

Keywords

first-year students; adjustment difficulties; academic adaptation; daily-life adaptation; interpersonal adjustment; support strategies

Abstract

This study examines how first-year students experience adjustment difficulties in academic, daily-life, and interpersonal domains and proposes a coordinated support framework. Using 600 valid questionnaires collected from six Chinese universities and one typical case, the paper combines descriptive analysis with case interpretation to identify the main risk points, their transmission mechanism, and feasible intervention paths. The survey shows that 89.33% of respondents reported difficulty adapting to university learning rhythms, 46.67% were affected by climate and diet differences, 35.00% had trouble integrating into the class community, and 20.33% were reluctant to seek help when problems emerged. These risks often overlap and evolve from isolated discomfort into broader maladjustment. The findings indicate that adjustment problems arise from the interaction of environmental change, insufficient psychological regulation, and fragmented support from schools and families. Based on these results, the paper proposes a school-led, family-coordinated, student-centered framework with staged interventions before enrollment, during the first weeks, and across the first semester.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Lu Yang
AU  - Yang Gao
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/07
TI  - A Three-Dimensional Analysis of First-Year Student Adjustment Difficulties Evidence from 600 Questionnaires and a Case Study
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 12th International Conference on Digital Humanities and Frontiers in Social Sciences (DHFSS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 101
EP  - 108
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_12
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-611-6_12
ID  - Yang2026
ER  -