Resilience Profiles Associated with Social Support and Engagement for Overcoming Academic Obstacles in Undergraduate Education

Abstract

The main objective of this work was to explore the configuration of those elements that allow students to better adapt to university environments and persist even in the presence of difficulties. The sample consisted of 371 undergraduate students (60% female), of low socioeconomic level, enrolled in public universities in the Caribbean region of Colombia. The methodological approach was based on a cluster analysis, in which, using the hierarchical agglomerative method, groups were extracted according to their similar characteristics of resilience in 12 dimensions assessed by the SV-RES scale and subsequent analyses of variance reported how each style was associated with engagement, and with a particular constitution of personal support networks, assessed respectively with the UWES-S scale, and from a square matrix of reticular data on the social networks of each participant. The results showed four profiles of students, characterized by: a) low resilience, high engagement, and strong support networks; b) resilience with low engagement, and dispersed support networks; c) resilience with high autonomy, intermediate levels of engagement, and weak support networks; and d) resilience, high engagement, and strong social support networks.

Keywords

• resilience
• undergraduate students
• social support
• engagement
• cluster analysis