A resilience perspective of teaching and learning in South African higher education institutions during crises

Abstract

Resilience is recognised as a multifaceted process that draws on multiple contextual and personal resources that interact in a complex manner over time. Amid times of crises such as COVID-19, load-shedding, and protest movements, students face manifold challenges, including social isolation, depression, low self-esteem, academic stress, and technological problems. This study aimed to create a reliable and valid Academic Resilience Scale (ARS) to investigate how South African education students from public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) experience academic resilience during crises. A socio-ecological resilience theory (SERT)-model embedded within the Context-Input-Process-Output (CIPO)-model was created to gain a holistic overview of how students experience academic resilience during crises. A sequential exploratory mixed-methods design was used to create a qualitative foundation to inform the subsequent quantitative phase. All undergraduate education students enrolled from 2020 to 2023 in participating HEIs were eligible to participate in this study. Derived themes from focus group interviews (12 students from three HEIs), identified using qualitative content analysis, were utilised for the development of the quantitative ARS (n = 30 pilot study; n = 343 main study). Six themes emerged: (i) student-lecturer relationship, (ii) academic and administrative stress, (iii) Higher education support, engagement and communication, (iv) persistence, (v) social support structure, (vi) technological issues. Content validity of the ARS was established by an expert panel, the underlying construct structure was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis, with reliability and validity being established using Cronbach’s alpha and construct validity. The ARS identified HE support, engagement and communication as the most important construct contributing to academic resilience during times of crises, followed closely by persistence and student-lecturer relationships. Recommendations include ensuring that all South African HEIs have mental health and academic support programmes, opportunities for engagement and interactive feedback mechanisms, and centralised communication platforms for transparent and timely updates, as these would ensure that students are better equipped to handle crises and maintain academic resilience. This study provides invaluable insights into the factors that contribute to academic success and resilience among undergraduate students, thereby allowing HEIs to refine their support systems and strategies to ultimately foster a more resilient study body.