Associate Professor, PhD O.E. Piskun
Professor, Dr.Hab. V.A. Chistyakov
Peter the Great Saint Petersburg State Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg 

Keywords: student, personal adaptation potential, disadaptation disorders, monitoring, Adaptive Capability Test.

Background. It is a matter of common knowledge that student’s adaptation to the academic education process goes through two major stages: psychological adaptation of the former school children to the academic environment in the first years, and the senior student’s adaptation to the upcoming professional career.

Let us dwell in more detail on the first adaptation process stage. It should be first noted that any transition to an adult life normally goes through a variety of problems due to new degrees of freedom with seemingly free time being acquired, that is particularly striking after the high-intensity work in the senior school classes in preparations for the Standard State Examinations, entrance University examinations etc. It was until recent times that these adaptation problems were mostly successfully solved by the national physical culture sector [1, 6]. However, for the last few years the new generation has been increasingly and massively addicted to the smartphones-centred lifestyles and subcultures (for the year of 2015, for instance, sales of smartphones in the RF were reported to total about 25.3 million (http://www.3dnews.ru/928438) including so-called selfie-mania; and these subcultures tend to overestimate hedonistic values and behaviours dominated by parting from the real life and full absorption into a virtual reality and communication in social networks. These negative lifestyles result in many modern young people being increasingly infantile [4] and, hence, poorly adaptable as the former school children to the academic education process for the reason that they normally show poor practical communicative skills, low motivations for education and inability to make independent decisions.

Objective of the study was to evaluate the infantilism growing trends in modern young people.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was designed to analyze the permanent monitoring test data using the A.G. Maklakov’s Adaptive Capability Test of a random sample of students from the Institute of International Education Programs (IIEP) and compare the newcomers’ test rates versus the second-year (spring semester) students’ test rates (see Table 1). It should be noted that the IIEP students’ psycho-physiological performance permanent monitoring system has been in use by the Institute since 2009 [5].

Study results and discussion

Table 1. Personal adaptive capability rate variations in the junior university students

As one can see from above Table 1, all students for the subject period have been qualified with Group 4 on the 3 and 4 levels on the applied scale that means the following adaptive capability category: “It is a lower adaptive capability group, with indications of obvious accentuations in the dominating individual character and some indications of psychopathic conditions, with the general mental condition being provisionally rated as marginal. Adaptation processes in the group go with difficulties. The individuals are prone to nervous/ mental breakdowns and long functional disorders. The individuals qualified with this group show low nervous/ mental balancing ability being inclined to conflicts and potential delinquent actions/ behaviour” [2, 3].

It should be mentioned that most of the students at the same time showed improvements in the Communication Ability (CA) and Moral Standard (MS) rates, including progress in the socialization rates, adequate acceptance of the own role in the community and a higher priority given to the commonly accepted behavioural models.

As far as the Behavioural Control (BC) rates are concerned (including the individuals being somewhat prone to nervous/ mental breakdowns, inadequate self-assessments and misjudgements of reality), virtually half of the group showed the BC rates being on the fall, the finding being explainable by the fact that the first test was conducted in the middle of the first semester when the newcomers were in a sort of euphoria after successfully entering the university. The test rates as of the end of the fourth semester (May 2016, prior to the credits week and examination session) showed the students’ being in a stressful condition.

The above findings may be interpreted as substantiating the mental processes in the first-year students being highly volatile due to the still dominant infantilism. To analyze variations of the students’ mental statuses, we applied the 2^nd level scale (as provided by the Disadaptive Disorders Survey (DDS) that includes 77 questions classified into 3 scales): (https://sites.google.com/site/test300m/dan).

Table 2. Disadaptive Disorders

As one can see from Table 1, 36% students were tested with the disadaptive disorders being on the rise for less than two years of the academic studies that means that they are in need of due psychological consulting service. In view of these findings, management of the Physical Culture and Adaptation Department of Peter the Great Saint Petersburg State Polytechnic University established a psychological consulting service for the students showing indications of mental disorders.

Conclusion. The study findings demonstrate the need in a due psychological support service for the junior university students and, therefore, the standard academic physical education curriculum is recommended to schedule special hours for the service in the variable part of the course, in order both the physical and mental health of the university students being duly monitored and maintained.

References

1. Analiz psikhologicheskoy adaptirovannosti studentov pervogo kursa na nachal'nom etape obucheniya v vuze (Analysis of psychological adaptive capability of first-year students at initial university training stage) / O.E. Piskun, A.A. Pauls, V.A. Chistyakov, N.A. Bagin // Uch. zapiski un-ta im. P.F. Lesgafta. – 2014. – # 9 (115). – P. 198-203.
2. Maklakov A.G. Lichnostny adaptatsionny potentsial, ego mobilizatsiya i prognozirovanie v ekstremal'nykh usloviyakh (Personal adaptation potential, its mobilizing and forecasting under extreme conditions) / A.G. Maklakov // Psikhol. zhurnal. – 2001. – V. 22. – # 1. – P. 16-24.
3. Mnogourovnevy lichnostny oprosnik «Adaptivnost'» (Multi-level personality questionnaire "Adaptive capability") [Electronic resource] // URL: http://psylab.info/Многоуровневый_личностный_опросник_«Адаптивность». – Date of access 01.01.2016.
4. Oleynikov Y.V. Sud'ba infantilnogo sotsiuma (The fate of infantile society) / Y.V. Oleynikov // Istoriya i sovremennost'. – 2012. – # 2. – P. 47-74.
5. Rezul'taty monitoringa psikhofizicheskoy adaptatsii studentov k obucheniyu i razrabotka kompleksa mer po okhrane ikh zdorov'ya (Results of monitoring of psychophysical adaptation of students to studies and development of set of measures for their health protection) / O.E. Piskun, N.N. Petrova, N.N. Vengerova et al. // Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta. Seriya 11. Meditsina (Bulletin of St. Petersburg State University. Series 11. Medicine). – 2011. – # 1. – P. 81-91.
6. Tataruch Rafal. Uroven' motivatsii v obuchenii yunykh sportsmenov (Motivation level in junior athletes' training) / Rafal Tataruch, V.F. Kostyuchenko, V.A. Chistyakov // Uch. zapiski un-ta im. P.F. Lesgafta. – 2011. – № 6 (76). – P. 159-164.

Corresponding author: piskun@imop.ru

Abstract

The article gives an account of the junior students’ adaptation variations in the academic education process. The study was based on the permanent monitoring data generated by the project by the Institute of International Education Programs (IIEP) under Peter the Great Saint Petersburg State Polytechnic University, the data being collected since 2009.

The authors used the test data of 2014-2016 obtained by the Adaptive Capability Test of the randomly sampled students. The test data and analysis showed the students’ adaptation going slower than in the prior periods and, consequently, the existing physical education curriculum is deemed insufficient to counter the negative trend; therefore, permanent psychological consulting service for the students’ diagnosed with disadaptation disorders is recommended.