Relationships Among Academic, Social and Psychological Adjustments to University Life: Comparisons across gender

University support to students' transition to university life can be divided into three dimensions, namely: academic adjustment, social adjustment and psychological adjustment. Previous researches show that there are relationships among those adjustments. However, less is known about gender differences in these relationships. The purpose of this study is to examine the gender differences in the perception of the relationships among these adjustments during the transition period. The study is based on a survey of 265 students from five Hong Kong universities. The findings show that: (i) social adjustment is perceived by female students to have more influence on academic adjustment than male students; (ii) psychological adjustment is perceived by female students to have more influence on academic adjustment than male students; and (iii) there is no significant difference in the relationship between social and psychological adjustments for both female and male students. Finally, implications of this study are explored and discussed. © 2012 Copyright European Higher Education Society.