The Impact of Loneliness and Social Support on Academic Adjustment among Hostel Students

Abstract

The process of transition from secondary school to university is one of the most important psychosocial challenges experienced by young adults, marked by concurrent changes in academic, social, and personal areas (Chickering & Reisser, 1993). For resident students, this adjustment is especially demanding as they have to contend with the double challenge of readjusting to strict academic demands alongside facing the new and uncharted territory of independent living, even if in locations that are geographically and culturally removed from the established social support systems (Tinto, 1993). Academic adjustment, the complex process by which students adjust cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally to the expectations of higher education, appears as a crucial predictor of short-term academic achievement and long-term educational attainment (Baker &Siryk, 1986). Yet this vital process of adjustment is often made difficult by two interacting psychosocial variables: the feeling of isolation and the presence (or absence) of effective social support, both of which empirical evidence has repeatedly demonstrated to have a profound effect on students' ability to successfully cope with the demands of university life (Pittman & Richmond, 2008).