Adaptation Dynamics of the First-Year Students to the Educational Environment of the Medical University

Abstract

The paper features the changes that take place in the process of adaptation of first-year students to the educational environment of the medical university during the first year of study. The methods research included diagnostic tools and methods of data processing, e.g. T.D. Dubowitzka and A. V. Krylova's technique "Adaptation of students at the university", questionnaire "Student Anxiety" in J. Taylor’s modification, φ-Fisher conversion multifunctional criterion and t-Student parametric criterion for dependent samples. A statistical analysis made it possible to make certain conclusions about the ambiguous nature of the dynamics of adaptation of freshmen to the educational environment of the medical university. The identified reliable differences in the indicators of adaptation to learning activity make significant additions to the scientific perception on the leading role of the given adaptation type, which has an open, pronounced, but fleeting positive character. The absence of significant differences in anxiety rates at the beginning and end of the school year indicates a fairly stable emotional background, with a predominance of average and elevated levels. On the other hand, certain aspects in the educational environment of the university cause persistent negative experience. The emotional state of the respondents by the end of the first year revealed a new aspect of anxiety, i. e. interpersonal relationships within the grouр. The authors believe this is due to the change of orientation in the adaptation process. The change reflects the formation of a community of freshmen with actively flowing processes of status differentiation and the transformation of a diffuse group into a prosocial association. This transformation suggests a different kind of adaptation dynamics to student grouр. This longer and more latent kind of adaptation is determined by intragroup processes.