academic workload

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.

Academic stress is a significant psychological and educational concern among undergraduate students because university study involves high academic workload, frequent examinations, strict performance expectations, overlapping deadlines, adjustment to new learning environments, and crucial decisions about future careers. Anxiety may increase substantially when students perceive academic demands as exceeding their available coping resources, whereas self-efficacy refers to students' internal beliefs about their capability to successfully organize and execute courses of action required to manage academic tasks. The present study proposes to examine the complex relationship among academic stress, anxiety, and self-efficacy among undergraduate students. A quantitative, cross-sectional, correlational research design will be used. Undergraduate students meeting the inclusion criteria will be recruited using an appropriate non-probability sampling technique. Data will be collected using a demographic information sheet and standardized self-report measures of academic stress, anxiety, and general/academic self-efficacy. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression will be used to examine the study variables. The findings may assist counselling psychologists, student-support services, faculty members, and educational institutions in identifying modifiable psychological factors relevant to undergraduate adjustment.