Page No 93-101
Amrita Deb and Meenakshi Arora
Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University,
Hyderabad Varanasi
This investigation is an attempt to study resilience in adolescents preparing for
Engineering/Medical Entrance Examinations. It is a part of another research
investigation on resilience in which 200 adolescents (mean age=18.36)
experiencing high academic adversity were chosen from a larger group of 566.
This was done by selection of those adolescents who scored above Q3 on the
Academic Adversity Scale, developed during the research work. In the present
investigation, the resilience of these 200 adolescents was assessed through
administration of the Mampane Resilience Scale. The sample was divided into
high resilience (HR) and low resilience (LR) groups through a median split of the
resilience scores. The academic performance of HR and LR groups as well as
HR males and HR females was compared. Finally an attempt was made to find
out if resilience scores could predict academic success; the criteria for success
being selection to one’s target institute for higher education. The results revealed
that individuals reporting high resilience showed better academic performance
as compared to those perceiving themselves to be low on resilience. Males
scored higher on resilience and performed better in competitive examinations
than females did. A major finding of this study was that the chances of HR
adolescents being successful in competitive examinations was found to be
120% greater than that of LR adolescents. Future researches are required to
understand better, the role of resilience in academic performance which in turn
may help adolescents to navigate through important educational transitional
points in their lives.