This study is intended to examine what correlations exist among academic high school students’resilience, academic failure tolerance and school adjustment, whether there are significant differences in the individuals’ resilience , the level of aca...
This study is intended to examine what correlations exist among academic high school students’resilience, academic failure tolerance and school adjustment, whether there are significant differences in the individuals’ resilience , the level of academic failure tolerance and school adjustment depending on gender and to what extent each subordinate factor can predict school adjustment, and whether the academic failure tolerance mediates between the school adjustment and ego- resilience. To that end, 635 students in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year class of 6 academic high schools located in Gyeonggi-do and Seoul were chosen as the subjects of this research. As the measuring tool, this research used the Korean youth resilience scale that was developed and verified by Lee Hae-lee and Joh han-ik (2005) based on the Ego-Resiliency Scale (ER) developed by Block and Kremen (1960), and the School Adaptation Scale prepared by Kim Ah-yeong (2002) in her "A Research on the Standardization of Academic Motivation based on school adaptation scales prepared by Lee Sook-ju (2000) and Joh Yeong-mi (1999).
The results of this research are as follows.
First, the levels of academic high school students, ego-resilience, academic failure tolerance, and school life adjustment were, on the whole, found to be higher than the median value of the scale except the preferred task level of the academic failure tolerance. Based on this, it can be seen that the subjects’ responses to the school life adaptation, resilience, and academic failure tolerance are, on the whole, positive.
The results of examining the level according to gender showed that there were significant differences in the total scores in all the areas of resilience, academic failure tolerance, and school life adaptation. In other words, in the resilience, female students were found to be significantly higher in total scores and all the subordinate variables than the male students.
In the academic failure tolerance, there were no significant differences in the emotion and behavioral factor of the subordinate factors, but in the entire scale and the preferred task level, the male students were found to be significantly higher than the female students. In the school life adaptation, the female students were found to be significantly higher than the male students in all the subordinate scales except the entire school class work among the subordinate factors.
These results showed that the female students, on the whole, have more resilient propensity than the male students, and that the female students were found to adapt themselves to school life such as relationship with teachers, relationship with friends, and compliance with school regulations better than the male students. In their studies, the male students responded more positively and constructively than the female students when they were faced with difficult tasks or exposed to failure experiences.
Second, the results of examining correlations among the academic high school students’ parents’ academic background, subjective economic level, resilience, academic failure tolerance, and school life adaptation showed that the parents’ academic backgrounds and economic level had low correlations with the students’ resilience, academic failure tolerance, and school life adaptation while there were positive correlations among resilience, academic failure tolerance, and school life adaptation, and particularly, school adaptation and resilience were found to have high degree of correlations. This shows that the resilient students were high in the academic failure tolerance and were good at school adjustment also.
Third, the results of analyzing the extent to which the subordinate factors of the academic high school students’ resilience and academic failure tolerancepredict the school life adaptation showed that the school life adaptation can be predicted best by the external protection of resilience, followed by the academic failure tolerance, and the personal internal characteristics of resilience.
Fourth, the results of examining whether the academic failure tolerance mediate the relation between the resilience and the school life adaptation showed that the academic failure tolerance was found to mediate partially the correlation between the resilience and the school life adaptation.
Based on the aforesaid results of this research, the following conclusion was derived.
First, as shown in the high correlations between the academic high school students’ resilience and the school life adaptation, the degree of predicting the school life adaptation by the subordinate factors of resilience and academic failure tolerance, and the partial mediating effects of the academic failure tolerance on the resilience and the school life adaptation, it is very important to develop and disseminatethe programs that can expand the resilience and the academic failure tolerance when guiding the students who are having hard time adapting themselves to school life in high schools.
Second, the significant difference in the scores of the resilience, the school life adaptation, and the academic failure tolerance between the male students and the female students suggests that education approach and strategy that are differentiated by gender in developing the programs and providing counseling to expand each aspect are needed.
Third, it can be clearly seen through the low correlations between the above-mentioned variablesand school adaptation that more in-depth and diverse approaches and researches are needed beyond mere parents’academic backgrounds and economic levels, with regard to the background variables that influence the academic high school students’ resilience, the academic failure tolerance and ultimately the school adaptation. Under the mutual assistance system of schools and homes, the students can adapt themselves well to school life, so accurately grasping the family background variables that influence the students’ resilience and academic failure tolerance is urgently needed for efficient implementation of the programs that can expand the students’ resilience and academic failure tolerance on the school field and for establishing individual and custom-made counseling strategies to attain them.