Impact of repeated failure: An exploratory study from the perspective of civil services aspirants

Pages: 555-561
Vivek Tiwari and Deepa Punetha (Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh)

An exploratory study was conducted to understand the meaning, causes and consequences of repeated failure from the perspective of civil services aspirants. An open ended questionnaire with interview schedule was distributed among 94 participants with the age range between 25 to 35 years who were giving civil services examination from at least ten times and were residing in different hostels and lodges of Allahabad. Out of 94 civil services aspirants, only 72 responded and returned the questionnaire. Content analysis of the data revealed that civil services aspirants were facing lot of difficulties in their personal and social life. Most of the civil services aspirants’ responses were exam centric and repeated failures were influencing each and every aspect of their life. Some of the civil services aspirants were hopeful while responding the meaning and consequences of failure while most of them were hopeless and were experiencing tremendous mental pressure. The responses also indicated that they were having distorted relationship with their closed ones and they were feeling alienated. Most of them reported that there was shrinkage in the friend circle after facing so much failure. They demonstrated the fear of negative results, feedback avoidance and loss of respect in their life after facing so many failures. They were coping with these challenges by motivating themselves, pursuing hobbies and so on. On the whole this study was an attempt to understand the phenomenology of the civil services aspirants who were failing repeatedly.