Students' School Success in Challenging Times: Importance of Central Personal and Social Resources during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://link.springer.com/

Y

21

COVID-19; Pandemics; Resilience (Psychology); Self Efficacy; Family Relationship; Peer Relationship; Teacher Student Relationship; Life Satisfaction; Well Being; Adolescents; Foreign Countries; Secondary School Students; Student Development; Outcomes of Education; Success; Student Attitudes

10.1007/s10212-023-00739-9

0256-2928
1878-5174

Students' well-being, learning activities, and learning success are key student outcomes that can be affected by challenging times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, it is vital to investigate the role of important personal (resilience, self-efficacy) and social resources (support from family, friends, teachers, important other) for central student outcomes (life satisfaction as a vital aspect of well-being, learning activities, and learning success) alongside perception of the COVID-19 situation. While the pandemic affected all of society, adolescents as a group who face core developmental challenges were especially vulnerable towards being negatively affected by the pandemic. Thus, analyses are based on 220 adolescent students (60.9% female, 37.7% male, 1.4% diverse) in Germany who were 16.21 years old on average (SD = 0.88) at time of data collection in May 2021. Students filled out an online questionnaire on sociodemographics and variables of interest. Path models revealed that perceiving the COVID-19 pandemic as stressful was negatively related to life satisfaction ([beta] = -0.27). Furthermore, perceiving the COVID-19 pandemic as stressful was negatively related to students' self-efficacy ([beta] = -0.22) and positively to support from an important other ([beta] = 0.32). Moreover, several resources were mainly positively related to our central student outcomes ([beta] = 0.13-0.41), and perception of the COVID-19 situation mediated two of those relations. Results underscore the importance of students' self-efficacy, which was related to all student outcomes. Furthermore, the results and methodological issues can impact further research and practice.

As Provided

2024

EJ1424951