Browsing by Author "Talarmo, Jutta"

Students' self-regulation, self-efficacy beliefs and psychological flexibility were examined in this research. The participants were 250 students from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki. Research data were collected in autumn 2013 through a questionnaire developed at the Helsinki University Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education (YTY). Factor analysis was used to explore the validity of the scales measuring self-regulation, self-efficacy beliefs and psychological flexibility. The first research question concerning the correlations between self-regulation, self-efficacy beliefs and psychological flexibility were analysed by Pearson's correlation coefficient. This was followed by K-Means Cluster Analysis to form student profiles comprising of self-regulation, self-efficacy beliefs and psychological flexibility (research question 2). After formation of student profiles Oneway ANOVA was used to analyse whether the student profiles differ from each other in terms of study success, age and sex (research question 3). According to the results all correlations between self-regulation, self-efficacy beliefs and psychological flexibility were statistically significant. Especially between self-efficacy beliefs and psychological flexibility a strong correlation (r2 = .30) was found. Four student profiles were identified and they were named as unsure (n = 41), self-confident easygoing (n = 95), self-confident distressed (n = 51) and self-confident efficient (n = 63) students. A statistically significant difference in study success was found between unsure (M = 3.22) and self-confident efficient (M = 3.91) students. With regard to age there was a statistically significant difference between self-confident easygoing (M = 25.6) and self-confident efficient (M = 29.9) students. Student profiles didn't differ with regard to sex. The results imply that self-regulation, self-efficacy beliefs and psychological flexibility have a great significance for students' coping and well-being in their studies. Therefore it is important to increase understanding of the interplay between self-regulation, self-efficacy beliefs and psychological flexibility to find means to support students' coping under the economically challenging circumstances facing Finnish higher education.