Academic and Psychological Problems of First Year University Stydents at the English Section
جامعة الزقازيق ، مجلة كلية التربية ببنها ، عدد إبريل 2002، 3- 29

Transition from the secondary stage to the university is a very serious problem and a stressful time for many students. The main concern of the present study is that the first year students at the English language section face some problems and cannot find help because the unavailability of the academic and psychological counseling services. This problem was tackled by answering the following three questions:
1- What are the academic and psychological problems faced by the first year students at the English section in Benha Faculty of Education?
2- What is the suggested orientation course for helping the students to overcome those problems?
3- What is the effectiveness of the suggested course?
For experimenting the suggested course, a sample of the first year students (=90) was chosen and divided into two groups: 45 for the experimental and 45 for the control. The authors, in the light of their academic and professional experience, selected the most serious and urgent problems to be the core of the suggested course. The number of academic sessions was six, five of them were discussed with the students and only one was a library visit. The total time for the academic sessions was about 10 hours. In implementing the psychological counseling sessions, the second author followed cognitive, affective and psychomotor approaches so as to help the students to face their problems, reduce their anxiety and to strengthen their mental hygiene. The total number of the sessions was 10, in addition to a introductory one and a concluding one. They spend one month, three sessions a week.
The study findings showed that the suggested orientation course was effective in helping the experimental group students to overcome most of their difficulties, while the control group, after administering the post-application, was still suffering from psychological and academic problems covered in the questionnaire more than the experimental group. The significance level between the two groups was 0.01