Page 1 of 5
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 01 Issue 06
July 2015
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 396
Factors affecting socio-cultural life of students in higher education.
Dr. Ranbir Singh Kingra
Principal.
Guru Gobind Singh College
Sanghera. Barnala
Abstract:
Higher education is critical success of young adults. Higher education can provide a gateway for social
mobility and play a critical role in countering social stratification in India, particularly for the students in
India society. However, change hurts. The transition from school to university is a change that every
school students have to face in their quest for higher education. The current scenario giving some signals
that there is a challenging life transition in the development of young adults, and many students are
inadequately prepared for the psychological, emotional, and academic realities of higher education. These
new university students are confronted with the adaptational challenges of living apart from family and
friends, adjusting to the academic regimen, assuming responsibility for the tasks of daily living, and
developing a new array of social relationships with peers and faculty. Further more, not many research
have been conducted on this issue except that focused had been made to the secondary and/or high school
students only. Therefore, this paper takes the challenge of filling these gaps by analysing some crucial
conceptual understanding what factors exactly influence the student’s life at the higher institution.
Introduction:
Findings in the literature support the contention
that the academic factors influencing students’
academic aspirations are compounded by family,
school and personal factors including social
support, academic self concept and perceptions
of the university environment. Research that has
been conducted in this area has limited
implications for understanding academic
aspiration of college students for two main
reasons. First, much of the research that has
been done on aspirations examines high school,
rather than college (or university), students’
Likewise, by inspecting varieties in the
scholastic desires of these university
understudies, in particular, by sexual orientation,
family foundation, year in university, age, social
class, and other chose demographic factors, this
examination looks to comprehend the impact of
these demographic factors and saw social help,
Page 2 of 5
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 01 Issue 06
July 2015
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 397
scholarly self-idea, scholarly inspiration, and
saw university condition on the scholarly goal of
understudies. The discoveries of this
examination would then be able to be utilized to
help administration to better comprehend the
understudies and better outfit them with the vital
help to influence their change from school to
university to a more effective undertaking.
Review of Literature:
According to Gloria, Hird & Navarro (2001),
students’ perceptions of the university
environment, which includes cultural congruity
or how well a student perceives their culture to
be welcomed, represented and supported by
the university/college, are important in a
student’s adjustment to university life. In
support of this, Belcheir (2003) state that the
emphasis that the campus environment places
on facets of college society, including academic
goals, studying, participating in non-academic
activities, creating social networks, contact with
students who are culturally or ethnically
diverse, and attendance of university-sponsored
events, has been shown to greatly influence
students’, especially ethnic minority students’
adjustment to college. Based on discussion
above, it is clear that previous and current
research support the contention that the
academic factors influencing students’
academic aspirations are compounded by
family, school and personal factors including
social support, academic self-concept and
perceptions of the university environment.
Coffman and Gilligan (2002) studied 94 first- year college students, focusing on the
relationship between life satisfaction and social
support. Their findings indicate that students
with higher levels of social support and lower
levels of reported stress were also more likely
to rate higher levels of life satisfaction. Also,
those students with higher levels of stress were
more likely to report that they were less
satisfied with life in general. Coffman and
Gilligan (2002) suggested that higher education
administrators, faculty, parents, and even
students themselves should focus on ways to
encourage the formation of social support
networks that students can draw upon when
they enter college and pursue their academic
goals
Hamachek (1995) reported that a relationship
exists between high self esteem and positive
self-concept as well as between high self- esteem and high academic achievement.
Research also supports high academic
achievement leading to higher self-esteem and
higher self-esteem positively affecting self- concept (Michie, Glachan, & Bray, 2001).
Students with a positive academic self-concept
are more likely to feel that they can handle
Page 3 of 5
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 01 Issue 06
July 2015
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 398
more difficult academic challenges which
increase the likelihood that they will take more
difficult classes and have higher academic
aspirations including college and/or an
advanced degree (Hamachek, 1995).
Furthermore, realistic and reachable goals are
more often set by high academic self-concept
students which most likely result in success
(Hamachek, 1995). This success then fuels more
realistic goals which most likely will continue
the cycle of success. However, students
identified as having low self-concept are more
likely to set goals that are harder or impossible
to reach which can lead to difficulty in reaching
success (Hamachek, 1995).
Research Methodology
Research Design
The present research study aimed to investigate
the impact of socio-cultural factors on student
passing on higher education in India. To this
aim, the study used a mixed approach by using
quantitative and qualitative research design
during the data collection and analysis phases.
For quantitative design, survey questionnaire
was employed and for qualitative design
interviews were conducted.
Research Sample
Tables 1 and 2 show the main survey sample
broken down by the four person respondent
groups and the districts of the institutions. The
majority of the questionnaire sample
respondents were university students (Table1).
Some 7.8% were college and university
teachers.
Table 1
Distribution of the Respondents
Frequency Percent
College students 470 22.27
University student 1485 70.38
College teacher 85 4.03
University teacher 70 3.32
All 2110 100.0
The age distribution of respondents showed 86.5% were aged between 20 to 30 years and 5.7% over 30
years. The rest of the sample did not provide age data. Table 2 explains the respondents’ frequency from
different districts of Punjab .
