Impact of resilience and role model influence on academic achievement of low socio-economic status adolescent students

Pages:250-254
Nancy Kurian (Doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Psychology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu)

The impact of Resilience and Role Model among low socio economic status students was examined. Resilience connotes ‘bouncing back’ to normalcy after facing ‘negative events’: an individual’s capacity to withstand stressors and not to manifest psychological dysfunction, such as mental illness or persistent negative mood in spite of difficult circumstances. Role Model influence is an immense driving force and moral support for the student’s academic achievement. A role model is someone with whom, an admirer identifies and wants to be like. The sample consisted of 502 low socio economic status adolescent students. Resilience scale (Annalakshmi, 2009) and Role model influence scale (Nancy, 2009) were administered to the sample. Criterion groups representing high and low levels of Resilience and Role Model Influence were constructed using median of the distribution of scores of the sample. Analysis of covariance, which controlled the influence of covariates Intelligence and Educational Risk on Academic Achievement, revealed that there is an impact of Resilience and Role Model Influence on the Academic Achievement of low SES adolescent students.