Adjustment Level of Pupil Teachers

Adjustment is an important trait for a happy living in any society. It helps one to keep out basic impulses at tolerable levels, to believe in one’s own abilities and to achieve desired goals. Thus, adjustment helps for self-initiated growth and development along intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and vocational dimensions. It is the process of establishing a satisfactory psychological relationship as well as constant interaction between the individual and his environment. Adjustment refers to the psychological process through which people manage or cope with the demands and challenges of everyday life. It is an individual’s characteristics, understanding of reaction to and manner of solving problematic situation, which he experiences. Degree of adjustment varies from exceptionally adequate behaviour to maladjustment. According to popular usage, however, an adjusted person is one who confirms to culturally accepted corals, customs and general ways of life. A person is considered to be maladjusted if he is unable or unwilling to adopt one or more aspects of his behaviour to confirm to the so-called normal behaviour. According to Dunkar, Adjustment is the process whereby an individual enters into harmonious or healthy relationship with his environment, physical and social. Adjustment is important for several other reasons also, failure to adjust leads to ineffective teaching and loss of educational opportunities (Black and Gregerson, 1991; Naumann, 1992). The maladjustment could lower the self-esteem, self-confidence and loss of efficiency. From an individual’s perspective, it becomes essential to understand, why some individuals are more effective than others in dealing with situations that are culturally diverse (Anget al., 2006). This can probably be explained by the fact that the extent to which an individual is able to accomplish his tasks is to some extent explained by his/her own competencies (Aycan, 1997).

Adjustment is a dynamic and ever-changing process, and not a static one. It involves the ability to solve one’s problems in a socially acceptable and constructive way. The problem of adjustment has become a crucial one in today’s world. It is of great significance as the quality of life depends on adjustment. Adjustment enables greater satisfaction in living. Adjustment is the process of finding and adopting modes of behaviour suitable to environment or change in the environment. The favourable, neutral and unfavourable adaptation of an organ to external and internal stimulation and the process by which individual or group accept, compromise the social forces and one another (Good, 1959). Adjustment is an important trait for a happy living in a society. It helps one to keep out basic impulses at tolerable levels, to believe in one’s own abilities and to achieve desired goals. Thus, adjustment helps for self-initiated growth and development along intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and vocational dimensions. It is the process of establishing a satisfactory psychological relationship or cope with the demands and challenges of everyday life. Adjustment is important for several other reasons also, failure to adjust leads to ineffective teaching and loss of educational opportunities (Black and Gregerson, 1991; Naumann, 1992). The maladjustment could lower the self-esteem, self-confidence and loss of efficiency. From an individual’s perspective it becomes essential to understand, why some individuals are more effective than others in dealing with situations that are culturally diverse (Ang et al., 2006). This can probably be explained by the fact that the extent to which an individual is able to accomplish his tasks is to some extent explained by his/her own competencies (Aycan, 1997). As per Alon and Higgins, (2005) Cultural Intelligence is an essential intercultural capacity for expatriates within contemporary organizations sourcing work overseas. CQ is defined as the individual’s capability to effectively deal with people from different cultural backgrounds (Ang, Van Dyne, Koh and Ng, 2004).

The objectives of the paper were to study the adjustment level of pupil teachers and to know the influence of gender, age, residing area and stream of education on their level of adjustment.

Data has been collected from the pupil teachers studying in secondary level teacher training institutions (B.Ed. Colleges) of Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Yamuna Nagar, Jind districts of Haryana. Sample consists of 300 pupil teachers.The tools used for data collection is Adjustment Inventory for College Students (AICS) by Sinha, A.K.P. and Singh, R.P. (1993).To study the influence of age, pupil teachers were classified into two groups. Pupil teachers having age of 28 years or less are grouped in age group1 and those having more than 28 years are grouped in age group2. Scoring was done as per the directions given in the manual.Mean and Standard Deviation (S.D.), percentage and t-test were used to know the significance of differences between mean scores. The pupil teachers were categorized in five categories on the basis of their level of adjustment (table-1).

Table 2 depicts that the mean adjustment scores of male and female of pupil teachers studying in Colleges of Education are 33.47 and 33.16 with S.D.’s 13.61 and 12.49 respectively. The calculated t-value comes out to be 0.20, which is not significant at 0.05 level of significance. It means that the male and female teachers did not differ on their adjustment. Further table 2 shows that the mean adjustment scores of urban and rural of pupil teachers studying in Colleges of Education are 32.38 and 34.02 with S.D.’s 12.48 and 13.38 respectively. The calculated t-value comes out to be 1.09, which is not significant at 0.05 level of significance. It means that the urban and rural teachers did not differ on their adjustment. It emerges from table 2 that the mean adjustment scores of arts and science pupil teachers studying in Colleges of Education are 32.59 and 35.38 with S.D.’s

belonging to arts and science pupil teachers did not differ on their adjustment. It is evident from table 2 that the mean adjustment scores of pupil teachers having age of 28 years or less are and those having more than 28 years studying in Colleges of Education are 33.50 and 31.41 with S.D.’s 12.64 and 14.49 respectively. The calculated t-value comes out to be 0.67, which is not significant at 0.05 level of significance. It means that the pupil teachers belonging to having age of 28 years or less are and those having more than 28 yearsdid not differ on their adjustment. Difference between mean and S.D. scores of male and female, urban and rural, arts and scienceand pupil teachers having age of 28 years or less are and those having more than 28 years studying in Colleges of Education on their adjustment are shown in figure-1:

Table 3 shows the influence of gender on adjustment of pupil teachers in Colleges of Education. It emerges from above analysis that 1 percent of male pupil teachers were found to have excellent adjustment, 38 percent as having good adjustment, 44 percent as having average adjustment, 11 percent as unsatisfactory level of adjustment and 6 percent as having very unsatisfactory adjustment. On the other adjustment, 49 percent as having average adjustment, 11 percent as unsatisfactory level of adjustment and 5 percent as having very unsatisfactory adjustment. The influence of gender on adjustment is shown below in figure 2: Figure-2: Showing influence of gender on the adjustment

Table 4 shows the influence of residing area on adjustment of pupil teachers in Colleges of Education. It emerges from above analysis that 2 percent of urban pupil teachers were found to have excellent adjustment, 33 percent as having good adjustment, 49 percent as having average adjustment, 11 percent as unsatisfactory level of adjustment and 5 percent as having very unsatisfactory adjustment. On the other hand it can be depicted from above table that no rural pupil teacher found to have excellent adjustment, 32 percent as having good adjustment, 41 percent as having average adjustment, 23 percent as unsatisfactory level of adjustment and 4 percent as having very unsatisfactory adjustment. The influence of residing area on adjustment is shown below in figure 3:

Table 5shows the influence of stream of education on the adjustmentof pupil teachers in Colleges of Education. It emerges from above analysis that 1 percent of arts group pupil teachers were found to have excellent adjustment, 34 percent as having good adjustment, 45 percent as having average adjustment, 16 percent as unsatisfactory level of adjustment and 4 percent as having very unsatisfactory adjustment. On the other hand it can be depicted from above table that 1 percent of science pupil teachers were found to have excellent adjustment, 27 percent as having good adjustment, 44 percent as having average adjustment, 22 percent as unsatisfactory level of adjustment and 6 percent as having very unsatisfactory adjustment.The influence of residing area on adjustment is shown below in figure 4:

It can be seen from table 6 that the influence of age on the adjustment of pupil teachers in Colleges of Education. It emerges from above analysis that no pupil teacher belonging toage group 28 or below were found to have excellent adjustment, 33 percent as having good adjustment, 45 percent as having average adjustment, 18 percent as unsatisfactory level of adjustment and 4 percent as having very unsatisfactory adjustment. On the other hand it can be depicted from above table that 6 percent of age group above 28 pupil teachers were found to have excellent adjustment, 31 percent as having good adjustment, 41 percent as having average adjustment, 16 percent as unsatisfactory level of adjustment and 6 percent as having very unsatisfactory adjustment. The influence of residing area on adjustment is shown below in figure 5:

It can be concluded from above results and discussion that there is no influence of demographic factors gender, locality, stream of education and age on adjustment of pupil teachers.Adjustment has two meaning in one sense it is continuous process of life that affects an individual, changes his behaviour and prepares him to keep proper relationship with his environment. In second sense, adjustment is that conducive situation in which individual keep himself happy and free from mental ailment.

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