Times of transition are laden with ambiguity, and the move from high school to college has an additional component of role changes to add to this uncertainty. In the spring and summer of 2020, this transition was disrupted by the changes brought on by the pandemic, affecting social norms, routines, and overall mental health outcomes. For professionals such as counselors and advisors to be able to provide specialized support, it is important to understand emerging adults' experiences at this time and to identify factors that helped them cope with this transition. Understanding the development of coping strategies has direct implications for both therapy and clinical practice which can work together to provide a higher quality of care for the people affected by the stress of major life transitions. In this study, I used a mixed-methods design to understand the experience of emerging adults who graduated high school during the pandemic, and the relation between tolerance for ambiguity and coping strategies, resilience, and psychological impact. / Master of Science / The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on so many of us here in the United States and abroad. This was a time in which so much of what we considered normal was totally disrupted by all of the changes that the pandemic caused. For my thesis I wanted to look at how the pandemic changed the ways that students who were in high school transitioned and moved on to college. I wanted to know what existing factors such as their ability to handle uncertainty impacted this transition and if it ended up being helpful for them. For this project I looked at how a person's ability to handle uncertainty, called tolerance for ambiguity in this study, impacted students abilities to cope with uncertainty, psychological impact of the pandemic, and resiliency overall.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115052 |
| Date | 15 May 2023 |
| Creators | Begley, Caroline |
| Contributors | Adult Learning and Human Resource Development, Wesche, Rose, Jackson, Jeffrey Brown, Sanner, Caroline |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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