An Exploration of Resilience: Evaluating Resilience Scores Among Honors Undergraduates Involved in Leadership Programs

• Main Author: Van Buren, Amy
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2019
• Subjects: Resilience; College Students; Leadership; Resilient Leadership; Education; Educational Administration and Supervision; Educational Leadership; Higher Education Administration
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3553; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5017&context=etd

Resilience is vital to college and university student success. Furthermore, resilience is necessary for successful leadership. Student leadership programs must consider resilience building as part of successful program development. By considering resilience as a factor in student leadership success and future leadership success, programs may encourage the development of leaders who are highly equipped to lead and continue to lead in the long term. Because of the need to promote resilience building through leadership program development, the researcher sought to explore the potential relationship between participation in leadership activities and student resilience scores. The purpose of this quantitative research was to determine if there were differences in scores on the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale among undergraduate students involved in honors leadership programs at a 4 year university. Potential links between specially designed 4 year student leadership programs and resilience scores were studied. The number of leadership opportunities participants had engaged in as well as gender, age, and class status (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior) were analyzed. A quantitative nonexperimental survey research design was employed by examining the results of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. The survey link was provided to students during the Fall 2018 semester. Data from the survey were analyzed to address each of the 9 research questions. Seven of the research questions were addressed using ANOVA and 2 research questions were addressed using t tests. No significant relationship was found between overall resilience scores among the 3 activity groups. The results indicated that the majority of the students scored well above the national average score. Although the analyses of relationship between the number of activities and each of the 5 resilience factors were not significant, students who completed 5 or more activities tended to score higher overall. Gender and age showed no significant difference on resilience scores. However, male students scored slightly higher than females, and females scored higher than the national average. The findings from this study may contribute to resilience research, student development research, leadership development research, and educational programming considerations.