Transición secundaria-universidad y la adaptación a la vida universitaria

Peru’s higher education faces a high dropout rate and a low retention rate. Research carried out by the National Superintendency of Education found that 27% of the students who enter university studies drop out during the first year. The objective of this research is to determine what internal and external factors allow new students to successfully adapt to the university environment. For this mixed investigation, first-year students from the Catholic University of Santa María (Arequipa-Peru) participated. A questionnaire with closed questions was applied to 168 students and a focus group with 32 participants was worked. Content analysis was performed using a three-stage open coding process to classify those found into topics. The findings show four factors that intervened for successful adaptation in the university environment: Teaching methodology and teacher evaluation, guidance and tutoring system, identification of professional vocation and social networks of extracurricular activities, while 8 out of 10 students presented difficulties in achieve this, obtaining low performance in one or more courses in the first year. It is concluded that family support, skills acquired in high school, performance, help in university adaptation.