student integration

The transition from secondary school to higher education is a critical period that shapes students' academic engagement, social integration, and persistence. Despite increased access to higher education in South Africa, many first-year students enter university with expectations that differ substantially from their subsequent experiences, creating adjustment challenges. Guided by Tinto's Theory of Student Integration and Educational Transition Theory, this study explored first-year students' expectations. It examined how students perceived and experienced mismatches between these expectations and the realities of university life. The study adopted an interpretivist qualitative research paradigm and an exploratory descriptive design. Data were collected through three focus group discussions with 21 purposively selected first-year students at a comprehensive university in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. They were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings revealed an expectation–reality mismatch in three areas: social integration and peer relationships, course selection and academic guidance, and academic workload alongside self-directed learning demands. Participants who identified as first-generation students described experiencing additional transition difficulties, which they associated with limited social and cultural capital, inadequate career guidance, and low digital literacy. Participants also associated persistent socioeconomic inequality with these difficulties. The study concludes that expectation–reality mismatch is a psychologically meaningful mechanism through which structural inequality translates into experiences of uncertainty, diminished belonging, and academic disengagement during the first year. Strengthened orientation, mentoring, academic advising, and digital literacy support are recommended to improve student adjustment, engagement, and retention.

Transformations in contemporary higher education require a reconsideration of the theoretical and practical foundations of student socialization management. Digital transformation, hybrid learning environments, growing student diversity, changing labour-market expectations, and participatory governance have made socialization a strategic issue in university management. The article aims to systematize contemporary models of student socialization management, identify their managerial potential and limitations, and propose an integrated structural–functional model based on theoretical synthesis. The study employs theoretical and comparative analysis, systematization, generalization, and pedagogical modelling. It argues that effective socialization management cannot be reduced to students’ adaptation to the university environment; rather, it should encompass academic and social integration, a sense of belonging, social and professional competences, professional identity, digital citizenship, self-regulation, and social agency. The proposed model integrates systemic, ecological, student-centred, competence-based, participatory, and digital-ecosystem approaches, thereby providing a more holistic, measurable, and manageable framework for student socialization.