Date
8-9-2022
Department
School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD)
Chair
John Bartlett
Keywords
combat veterans, non-combat veterans, belonging, social support, student stress, college adjustment
Disciplines
Education | Higher Education
Recommended Citation
Lawrence, Cynthia Louise, "A Comparison of Combat Veterans and Non-Combat Veteran's Perceptions of Adjustment to College" (2022). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 3777.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/3777
Abstract
The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental, causal-comparative, ex post facto study was to examine the differences in perceptions between combat veterans and veterans’ adjustment to college based on the factors of belonging, social support, and student stress from the Veteran Adjustment to college scale. This study was important in order to determine how veterans adjust to college in order to attain degrees. This quantitative casual-comparative ex post facto design worked well due to the use of archival data, the variables could be organized into experimental groups; and the data was collected with a validated survey instrument. A MANOVA was used to analyze the data. The general population for the study was student veterans who attended college and universities in the United States (U.S.). The target population for this study is student veterans who completed the Veteran Adjustment to College Scale. The results of this study showed that there was a statistically significant difference between combat veterans’ and non-combat veterans’ perceptions of belonging as it pertains to adjustment to college. Future research should focus on determining the difference between academic belonging and campus belonging for combat veterans and non-combat veterans’ adjustment to college.
