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Transition to university is stressful and successful adjustment is imperative for well-being. Historically research on transitional stress focussed on negative outcomes and ill health. This is the first UK study applying a positive psychology approach to investigate the characteristics that facilitate adjustment among new university students. A range of psychological strengths conceptualised as covitality factors, shown individually to influence the stress and subjective well-being (SWB) relationship were assessed among 192 first year UK undergraduates in week three of their first semester and again six months later. Path analyses revealed that optimism mediated the relationship between stress and negative affect (a component of SWB) over time, and academic self-efficacy demonstrated significant relationships with life satisfaction and positive affect. Contrary to predictions, stress levels remained stable over time although academic alienation increased and self-efficacy decreased. Optimism emerged as a key factor for new students to adjust to university, helping to buffer the impact of stress on well-being throughout the academic year. Incorporating stress management and psycho-educational interventions to develop strengths is discussed as a way of promoting confidence and agency in new students to help them cope better with the stress at university.

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The increasingly ageing population includes a proportion of well older adults that may benefit from low-level psychological support to help maintain their wellbeing. A factor consistently regarded as integral to wellbeing is gratitude. The effect of a 'Three good things in life' gratitude intervention on hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing and perceived stress levels in non-clinically depressed older adults was examined. This intervention has not been evaluated with older adults previously. The duration of the intervention was two weeks and baseline, end of intervention and 30 -day follow up measures were compared. The effects of online and paper delivery of the intervention were compared and differences in acceptability of the two routes examined. The daily positive events identified by participants were also analysed. Participants were 88 healthy community living adults aged 60 years or over.The intervention produced significant differences in eudemonic wellbeing as measured by flourishing from baseline to day15 that was maintained as the day 45. Significant increases in flourishing were evident from baseline to day 45. There were decreases in perceived stress from day to day 15 but these were not maintained once the intervention ended. There were no significant differences between online or paper delivery of the intervention. This age group managed and many preferred online delivery, Gratitude diaries seem to be a cost-effective method of producing beneficial improvements in wellbeing for older adults.

A great deal of attention is paid to the requirement for university students to become autonomous learners. A review of the literature revealed a lack of relatively short psychometrically sound measures of autonomous learning despite its purported importance.This study aimed to develop a brief psychometrically sound measure of autonomous learning to facilitate empirical research in this area. Items for the scale were selected from reviewing the literature and face validity was confirmed by experienced academics. In the first study, first year psychology students (N =214) completed the measure. Principal components analysis produced a 12 item measure with 2 subscales that appeared to be psychometrically sound. The factor structure was reproduced with a more diverse group of undergraduates (N =172) in a second study. The internal reliability and the concurrent validity of the scale were both found to be satisfactory suggesting that this measure may prove useful to educational researchers.

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In the UK, changes to the Higher Education system have increased the range of stressors experienced by students above those traditionally associated with the transition to university.Despite this, there is little qualitative research examining how students experience and cope with the adjustment to university. The experience of the transition was investigated in depth amongst 10 first year UK undergraduates. Purposive sampling resulted in a group with demographics similar to national statistics on UK undergraduates. Semi-structured interviews were used beginning with a content specific vignette to develop rapport.Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was utilised to analyse the transcripts (Smith, 2003) and quality checks were implemented to increase the validity of the analysis. Five main themes were identified: all the change, with subthemes of independent living, homesickness, differences between post-compulsory education and university; expectations of university; academic focus with subthemes of self-discipline, motivation, learning from experience; support network with subthemes of establishing a support network, support for coping with problems; and difficulties with subthemes of difficulties experienced with housemates, finances and employment, and academic difficulties. Students used a range of coping strategies. By identifying the role of positive psychological strengths such as optimism, hope, self-efficacy, and self-control in coping with stress and facilitating positive adaptation, the study locates positive psychological strengths within a transactional understanding of stress and provides depth and relevance to their role in facilitating adjustment. Such qualitative research is rare in the positive psychology and stress literature. Suggestions for easing the transition are made.