The intense stress that first year student go through and a related concept, school adjustment, are hot topics in psychology research. Another concept that is related to stress is mindfulness. The negative relation between stress and mindfulness is long known. Based on this, the aim of this study is examining the relationship between university adaptation, perceived stress and mindfulness. The participants of the study are 240 first year students aged between 17- 29 of Psychology, Archeology, and Counseling Departments. The data was gathered via demographics questionnaire, Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), University Life Scale (ULS). The results indicated that mindfulness and (1) perceived stress was correlated significantly in negative direction and (2) University Adaptation, except of the Personal Adaptation (PA) subscale, was significantly correlated in positive direction. In parallel to this (3) perceived stress was found to be negatively correlated with university adaptation at statistically significant level. After the initial analysis, a secondary analysis was conducted between all variables in order to form a mediation modal. According to this modal (4) mindfulness has a role of mediator between perceived stress and university adaptation or has a buffer effect, so to say. Finally the limitations of the study and the future recommendations were discussed.
Keywords: Mindfulness, University Adaptation, Perceived Stress