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Academic coping of students
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Academic coping of students
Marika Veisson, Mare Leino, Loone Ots, Viive-Riina Ruus, Ene-Silvia Sarv
Tallinn Pedagogical University, Estonia
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of
Crete, 22-25 September 2004
There are serious signs which demonstrate that the Estonian schools do not function
satisfactorily: every year more than 1000 pupils drop out from compulsory education
schools, the percentage of non-achievers at lower secondary education level is up to 78%. 70-75% of the students who do not cope in academic domains are boys. The
perspectives of these students at the labour market are rather gloomy, especially at a time
when growing social and economic inequality (more than 1/3 of the children live below
official poverty level) has increased the inequality and selectiveness of schools: there are
elite and ordinary schools in Estonia. Therefore, Estonia is in great risk for growing
criminality, alcohol and drug abuse, as well for delinquency and suicidal behaviour.
1. Theoretical and methodological background of the study
On the basis of such a problematic situation, we started the project School as
developmental environment and students’ coping. From the methodological point of
view, the project is based upon the theory of ecological systems with Lewin’s field theory
as a forerunner and has interconnections with Gibson’s and Barkers’s theories. We share
the conviction that the development of a human being is not solely determined by nature
(e.g. genes) or upbringing, but takes place within the interrelationship between the
environment and individual (its historical and cultural parameters and pressure exerted by
society or situations the individual has immediate contact with), it presents challenges to
the individual (sometimes feasible, sometimes threatening), thus making him/her face
problem solutions which require adaptability (Buss 1996). Through meeting challenges
and solving problems, the individual (or a group) as an agent may decisively change the
environment by means of social structures or institutions. Thus, it is not only individual
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or a group (e.g. the learner or teacher or school) who are undergoing changes and growth,
but the whole system - individual (group) and the environment. The direct source of our
research is Bronfenbrenner, who describes the environment as a context in which the
child develops, distinguishing between several levels of the environment (micro, meso,
exo and macro) depending on how immediate or mediated the contacts with the
developing individual are (Bronfenbrenner, 1995).
In compliance with the aforementioned approach, socialisation is seen as a process,
where the individual is simultaneously both the outcome of social interactions as well as
an active agent, who at present or in future may give reason to social changes. We share
the perspective that the central mechanism of socialisation is interaction (incl.
communication), which expects immediate contact between the socialising agents and the
individuals being socialised. Thus we emphasise a community-centred position in
socialisation (according to Bronfenbrenner`s terminology micro- and meso-systems),
whereas community means “a concrete grouping of interacting persons who are morally
integrated by a set of relatively stable social institutions” (Harvey, 2002:184). Current
project focuses on school and school classes as communities, which next to the family
carry a central role in the process of socialisation (Fulcher and Scott, 2003:319). In
accordance with the initial problem set in current study – school unadvancement – family
is seen as a background variable and school/school class as “ecological units of school
activity” (Oxley, 2000: 566-567). Observing the school as a community is important for
finding support from strategic approaches of the community psychology, such as
individual and group well-being, empowerment, prevention and intervention, when
working out and implementing pedagogical suggestions and solutions (Handbook …,
2000). Pupils are seen as active beings, trying to work out strategies for academic coping.
On the basis of these postulates, we pose two questions: 1) which coping strategies our
students’ use and 2) how and to what extent the learning environment affects formation
of students’ coping strategies at different schools? Our basic hypothesis claims that
school culture can either promote or inhibit the development of pupils’ constructive
coping strategies. We will not discard the influence of macro environment (e.g. the
national curriculum) and family background on students’ coping at school, but our main
unit of analysis is the learner in his/her close contact with the academic environment that
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presents challenges, sets tasks the learner must cope with (e.g. examinations, tests, home
assignments, discipline, relationships with teachers and peers), and failing this follow the
sanctions (e.g. remaining a second year in the same form or even being expelled from
school). Moreover, the key concept of the project is coping. According to Lazarus and
Folkman (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984; Lazarus, 1991) coping is understood as
consistently changing cognitive and behavioural efforts of an individual aimed at coping
with external and/or internal requirements, which lay too heavy a burden on his/her
resources. Current study uses the model of children’s coping in academic domain, created
by Skinner and Wellborn (1997). They argue that in addition to the cultural, sociological,
economic and psychological reasons linked to dropping out of school, another key factor
affecting pupils’ learning success and feeling content with the school is their academic
coping – the way pupils interpret the challenges, drawbacks and difficulties that arise in
the process of learning. The coping categories developed by the authors are based on
several presumptions. Firstly, substantial literature sources prove that school stress is
affected not only by the objective parameters of the learning environment, but it develops
within the interaction between the individual and environment and the cognitive appraisal
of the situation is the central factor determining the reaction to the stressor. Secondly,
besides problems related to home and age-mates, things happening at school are the main
sources of anxiety for pupils. Thirdly, already at pre-school age, children are capable of
naming the factors that strongly disturb them (i.e. stressors). The authors construct their
system of coping categories on the basis of children’s appraisals to challenges and threats
to their basic psychological needs – neglect (challenge or threat to relatedness), cognitive
chaos (challenge or threat to competence), coercion (challenge or threat to autonomy),
and their possible behavioural, emotional and orientational coping responses to these
challenges/threats.
2. Research organisation and methods
Our research consists of several stages: I. Classification of schools according to school
climate based on pupils’, parents’, teachers’ and school managers’ beliefs and evaluations
(a representative sample of schools in Estonia with the inclusion of Russian language
schools). The basic method in this stage was questionnaires. II. The first stage will be
followed by a more profound analysis of coping strategies by pupils of different types of
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schools and their typical educational discourse. Special attention will be paid to the
groups of pupils who are marked as successful or unsuccessful, differences in their
coping strategies and the data will be compared with various other parameters (attitude
towards school, relationships with teachers and peers, family background etc). During
this stage, we also plan to carry out an ethnographic research of school milieu in order to
detect basic regularities on which the actual school discourse functions, what kind of
challenges and threats it presents to pupils and what kind of coping strategies it activates.
III. If possible, in cooperation with physicians, further research takes us to the
physiological level to find out the sources of pupils’ stress and other health indicators.
Our final goal is of practical nature: we intend to give advice for persons and institutions
involved in education in order to reduce pupils’ and teachers’ inability to cope and create
conditions for the formation and reinforcement of constructive strategies in the school
milieu.
Currently we have carried out questionnaires in 64 schools, among students from the 7th,
9th and 12th grades (N= 2467; 1307 female students, 1122 male students, 37 missing),
thus forming roughly about 10 percentages of all general education schools in Estonia.
This representative sample with 1561 students from urban and 860 from rural areas
reflects also the general distribution of inhabitants in those areas. The questionnaire
contains sets of questions about students’ coping, school climate, basic values at school,
bullying, students’ certainty about future, and family background. Students’ typical
coping strategies when an academic failure occurs are measured by 36 items (see Skinner
and Wellborn, 1997:402). It must be underlined that in order to validate the questionnaire
we carried out a preliminary research, which showed that the method works satisfactorily.
For current analyses we have included the following blocks of the students’ answers:
1. “Outcome” indicators: a) students’ coping strategies; b) students’ academic
performance; c) absenteeism, perceived study load, doing home-work regularly; d)
optimism/pessimism concerning their future at school; e) subjective health indicators.
2. School climate indicators. We developed the following aggregated variables: a)
students’ sense of general well-being at school (e.g. whether he/she feels bored, wants
to attend school, feel belonging to the school, feels lonely at school, finds friends
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easily – the majority of these questions are identical to those in the PISA
programme); b) how he/she perceives the teachers’ attitudes (incl. caring for the
student) towards him/her (8 items); c) how he/she perceives his/her relations with
peers (4 items), and whether he/she has been bullied or been bullying others; d) the
studying atmosphere at school (incl. discipline); e) questions about the professional
parameters of teachers as evaluated by the students (e.g. competence on the subject
matter, their ability to awake interest in the subject, their own readiness to learn).
3. The values of school as perceived by the students.
3. Results
3.1. Coping and other “outcome” variables
Most of the data presented below is aggregated. All the coping strategies presented in the
questionnaire are divided into constructive (positive) and non-constructive (negative)
strategies. For example, if school failure occurs “I try to find out more about it” (meaning
“I try to reduce chaos”) versus “I try to get out of it” (meaning “The world is
unpredictable”). The aggregate of all self-reports shows that over a half of students (53%)
indicate the use of positive strategies, about a 1/5 (19%) of answers indicate preference
for negative strategies, about 1/3 hesitate making a choice.
Accordingly, the respondents choose to what extent these behaviours, emotions, and
orientations are typical to them. For every person we found out his or her personal
“coping indicator”. The test for normality showed that the acceptance of normality
hypothesis is absolutely justified (p < .000 by both the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of
normality and the Shapiro-Wilk test).
Next we found out the differences between schools, age and gender groups. The most
important result is that there is a significant difference between the boys and girls (p <
.000), in the whole sample girls appeared to have more constructive coping strategies
compared to boys. Differences in coping between girls and boys were highly significant
(p < .000) among the 14-16 year-olds, while there were no statistically significant
differences between male and female students older than 17 years of age.
It must be emphasized that coping strategies (positive or negative) correlate with:
Academic coping of students

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Health indicators (r = -.247, p < .000). The more constructive the coping strategies
were, the fewer complaints were given about fatigue, headaches etc.

School achievement (r = .221, p < .000)

Absenteeism as reported by the students (r = -.185, p < .000)

Study load as perceived by pupils: the load seems smaller to those who employ more
efficient coping strategies (r = -.135, p < .000)

Home-work not completed in time (r = -.290, p < 000)

Optimism about future success at school (r = .397, p < 000)

Fear of failure at school in future (r = -.295, p < 000). (Figure 1)
Negative Health indicators
-0,274
0,4
0,3
Fear of failure at school in future
-0,295
0,2
School Achievement
0,221
0,1
Coping
0,0
Optimism about future
Absenteeism
-0,185
0,397
Home-work not completed
-0,290
Study load
-0,135
Figure 1 Significant correlations between coping and other “outcome” variables
It must be stressed that the percentage of respondents who feel permanently or often tired
was 67%, while 48% of the respondents say that they feel tired already in morning.
3.2. Coping and school climate
According to our results the coping strategies of students correlate with:

The students' general well-being at school (r = .402, p < .000)
Academic coping of students

Teachers’ attitudes towards students perceived by students (r = .372, p < .000)

Teachers' professional qualities perceived by students (r = .218, p < .000)

Studying atmosphere (e.g. discipline) perceived by students (r = -.191, p < 000).
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Distances between students and teachers are high: about 37% of the students claim that
none of the teachers they could turn to when having a problem at school are completely
trustworthy. The situation is even more dramatic with negative attitudes of teachers
towards pupils as attributed to them by the students: about 58% of pupils think that there
is at least one teacher at school who dislikes him/her (38% thinks that there is more than
one such teacher). Nevertheless, 77% of pupils agree, that most teachers treat them justly.
To sum it up, at least one third of all pupils cannot consider their relationship with
teachers satisfactory in some respect.
The other set of questions concerns mutual relationships between peers. The following
correlations with the coping indicators were found:

General value given to the mutual relations between peers (r = .117, p < 000)

Mutual help of the students in the academic domain (r = .077, p < 000)

Being absent from school because of others bullying (r = -.156, p < .000). (Figure 2)
General well-being at school
0,402
0,4
Being absent from school
-0,156
0,3
Teachers' professional qualities
0,2
0,218
0,1
0,0
Coping
Mutual help of the students
0,077
Mutual relations between peers
0,117
Teachers' attitudes towards
students
0,372
Studying atmosphere
-0,191
Figure 2 Significant correlations between coping and school climate
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It must be underlined that questions were asked about both, how often have the student
been bullied at school as well as how often has he/she bullied others. The results
indicated that 38% of students had been victims of bullying at school, while 45%
admitted themselves having bullied their classmates. Still, the last variable was not
statistically significantly correlated to coping.
Trying to evaluate the influences of different factors of the school climate to the coping
strategies we applied the regression analyses. The influences of the second
aforementioned set (e.g. mutual relations between peers) to coping strategies were small,
thus we hereby presented only regression results with the first set of variables (e.g.
students' well-being etc.). The regression analyses indicated that coping of students was
statistically significantly predicted by three variables, accordingly by well-being at school
(β = .298), teachers attitudes towards students (β = .246), and studying atmosphere (β = .082). The teachers' professional qualities were not significant predictors of coping. (R²).
3.3. Basic values at school
The respondents marked down the importance of 14 traditional pedagogical values of
their school on a 7-point scale (Figure 3). The ranking of the mean values was the
following: 1) academic achievement (m = 4,17), 2) politeness (m = 3,96), 3) self-
3,50
3,42
3,34
3,33
Helpfulness
Students' health
Tolerance
Novel thinking, curiosity
3,19
3,51
Good human relations
Joyful, happy school-life
3,56
Security of students
3,21
3,62
Widespread knowledge
Correct appearance
3,65
3,77
Honesty
Discipline
3,78
Self-fulfilment
4
3,96
4,11
fulfilment (m = 3,78),
3
2
1
Politeness
Academic achievement
0
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Figure 3 Main values in all schools together
4) honesty (m = 3,77), 5) discipline (m = 3,65), 6) widespread knowledge, erudition (m =
3,62), 7) security of students (m = 3,56), 8) good human relations (m = 3,51), 9)
helpfulness, caring (m = 3,42), 10) students' health, 11) tolerance (m = 3,34), 12) novel
thinking, curiosity (m = 3.33), 13) correct appearance (m = 3,21), and 14) joyful/happy
school-life (m = 3,19). Note the two extremes: formal achievement and joyful, happy
school-life.
3.4. The portraits of concrete schools
In the following paragraph we will explore briefly to what extent the learning
environment affects formation of students’ coping strategies at different schools. We will
describe schools from two extreme ends, one where students have positive coping
strategies and the other with negative ones. A school that facilitates good coping can be
described by the following criteria: the general well-being of students is high, teachers’
attitudes towards students and mutual relations between peers are very good, bullying at
school is less frequent, and the studying atmosphere is above average. In such schools
students value more academic achievement, politeness, self-fulfilment, honesty,
discipline, widespread knowledge, security of students, helpfulness, students’ health,
novel thinking, and happy school-life.
A school where students use more negative coping strategies can be described by lower
general well-being, studying atmosphere, and students’ mutual relations between peers,
and relatively higher rates of bullying. Students perceive that their school values less such
qualities as academic achievement, self-fulfilment, widespread knowledge, security of
students, helpfulness, students’ health, tolerance, novel thinking, and happy school-life.
It is possible to find examples in 6 gymnasium (Figure 4) and 6 comprehensive schools
(Figure 5)
AB
BE
BI
Figure 5 Six Comprehensive Schools
R
AS
AC
AB
Bullying at
school
Mutual help of
students
BF
Mutual
relations
between
peers
AX
Teachers'
professional
qualities
M
Studying
athmosphere
Teachers'
attitudes
General
wellbing
Bullying at
school
Mutual help of
students
Mutual
relations
between
peers
Teachers'
professional
qualities
Studying
athmosphere
Teachers'
attitudes
General
wellbing
Academic coping of students
3,2
3,0
2,8
2,6
2,4
2,2
2,0
1,8
1,6
1,4
AU
Figure 4 Six Gymnasiums
3,6
3,2
2,8
2,4
2,0
1,6
1,2
BT
10
Academic coping of students
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4. Discussion and conclusions
According to our main hypothesis school culture can either promote or inhibit the
development of pupils’ constructive coping strategies. The results of current study
suggest that ca 20% of pupils constitute a risk group, since their typical coping strategies
are unconstructive. Evaluating these results it is essential to stress that coping strategies
are connected to such important factors at school, as academic achievement, students’
health, home-work completed in time, being absent without reason, study load as
perceived by pupils, optimism about future, and fear of failure at school.
It is important to stress that the coping strategies of 14-16 year-old boys are substantially
less constructive than those of girls at the same age group, although no gender differences
can be observed among students older than 17 years of age. Consequently, most critical is
the situation in compulsory education. One of the possible explanations to this is that the
more “weak” boys have been expelled from gymnasium: when the proportions of girls
and boys is approximately 50:50 at compulsory education level, then among the students
aged 17 and more, there are considerably more girls in our sample (61%). Teachers'
attitudes can also give reason to why girls have more constructive coping strategies,
because girls get more attention, have lesser problems with discipline, and are perceived
by teachers to cause less trouble at school.
Our results indicate that pupils' positive coping strategies are best predicted by students’
general well-being at school and how students perceive attitudes of teachers towards
pupils. We want to emphasize that the teachers' favourable attitudes towards students (as
perceived by them) can be considered one of the most important variables which has
influence on the students' coping strategies. Remember that in our sample about 1/3 of
the students suffer from unfavourable relationships with teachers. Consequently, we can
set another hypothesis: the development of positive coping strategies of one third of
students is inhibited because of poor school climate. On the other hand, teacher-student
relations are not a finite phenomenon and can be improved in case of adequate
intervention.
Academic coping of students
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Some of the basic factors influencing school climate, are values accepted and promoted
by schools. The ranking of values reveals a rather harsh school climate: our students
think that their schools consider such "hard" values as academic achievement, politeness
and discipline significantly higher than the "soft" ones – good human relations, caring,
tolerance and curiosity, and joyful school-life. Whether and how much does the valuesystem of schools promotes or inhibits development of constructive coping attitudes by
students is a question for further research.
Although statistically not significantly correlated to coping, school bullying is an
important issue for further discussion, since current results indicate that nearly a half of
the students are involved in bullying others while about a third have been subject to
bullying themselves (among those there are pupils who have avoided attending school
because of others bullying them). One can interpret this as another signal of the
dominance of so to say "hard" values among our students, but whether this atmosphere
inhibits formation of constructive coping strategies by more sensitive and vulnerable
students is a question for further research. One thing clear is that most of our students are
overloaded with schoolwork. Two thirds of the respondents in current study feel
permanently or often tired and about half of the respondents say that they feel tired
already in morning. Still, students with positive coping strategies experience lower rates
of physical stress, such as fatigue, headaches etc.
The overall picture of school-life and students' coping in Estonia suggests that the school,
as well as the country as a whole, continues in a period of differentiation and
stratification where a considerably large amount of young people (about 20%-30% of the
pupils) suffers from coping difficulties. Still, in order to give an adequate interpretation to
the situation, international comparisons are highly desirable.
References
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Context. American Psychological Association: Washington, DC, pp 619-647.
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Buss, M. D. (1996). The Evolutionary Psychologies of Human Social Strategies. I. E.
Tory Higgins and Arie W. Kruglanski (Eds), Social psychology: Handbook of Basic
Principles. New York, London: The Guilford Press, pp 3-38.
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Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and Adaptation. Oxford University Press.
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Oxley, Diana (2000). The School Reform Movement: Opportunities for Community
Psychology. – Handbook of Community Psychology. Julian Rappoport and Edward
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Skinner, Ellen A. and Wellborn, James G. Children’s Coping in the Academic Domain. –
Handbook of Chlidren’s Coping: Linking Theory and Intervention. Wolchik and
Sandler (eds). Plenum Press, New York, 1997, pp 387-422.
Marika Veisson
Professor
Tallinn University
Faculty of Educational Sciences
10111 Tallinn