Exploring connections between students’ psychological sense of school membership and their resilience, self-efficacy, and leadership skills

Pages:55-59
Bhumika Kapoor and Aakanksha Tomar (Department of Psychology, University of Delhi, Delhi)

There is a general consensus that children’s experiences in school have a substantial bearing on various psycho-social outcomes in their lives. However, while much research has explored the impact of children’s social experiences in school on their academic performance, there is relatively little empirical evidence that connects these with non-academic consequences. We contend that of the varied experiences that students have in the school context, their sense of belongingness or membership with their school, that is, the degree to which students feel accepted, respected, included, and supported in school, may be of prime importance. With this in the backdrop, this research aims to seek whether a relationship exists between students’ psychological sense of school membership and their resilience, self-efficacy, and leadership skills. It was hypothesized that a high sense of school membership will be positively associated with resilience, self-efficacy, and leadership skills. To this end, standardized instruments to measure these four constructs were administered on a large sample of students (N=200) aged between 14 and 17 years, chosen from private English-medium schools in Delhi and NCR. The data was analysed using Pearson’s r. Results confirmed the hypothesis. Both theoretical and practical implications of the same will be discussed.