Students’ Experiences of Bullying in High School and Their Adjustment and Motivation During the First Semester of College

Bullying is a highly destructive communicative behavior. The purpose of this study was to determine if high school victimization experiences from bullying influence college students' first-semester transition experiences. College students (N = 149) completed a questionnaire during their first month in school measuring their retrospective bullying experiences in high school (relational-verbal bullying, cyberbullying, physical bullying, culture-based bullying), their current motivation for attending college (intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation), and their first-semester adjustment (academic adjustment, social adjustment, personal-emotional adjustment, institutional attachment). Results revealed negative relationships between first-semester students' reports of high school victimization and their current motivation to attend and adjustment to their first month of college. These findings suggest that even though the college experience may be a new start for some students, victimization experiences during high school have a lingering effect on first-semester students' academic and social transitions to college.