Master of Arts (Applied Psychology)

Students face many academic challenges and ongoing stress as part of their daily school life. Therefore, it is imperative to foster and develop students’ ability to manage and overcome such difficulties to remain buoyant, and achieve their academic potential. The present study aims to examine some student- and education-related factors influencing students’ academic buoyancy, that is, students’ capacity to overcome or effectively deal with everyday challenges in the school setting. Correlation, multiple regression and decision tree methods were used to analyse the survey data collected from 3776 lower secondary students from 11 secondary schools in Singapore. The participants, aged between 13 to 16 years old, were administered a self-report questionnaire that tapped into their perceptions and self-beliefs regarding their academic buoyancy and education-related factors to include academic self-efficacy, academic aspirations, teacher-student relationship, attitudes towards school and attitudes towards teachers and classes. Information regarding student-related factors such as their gender and course of study were also obtained in the questionnaire.

Results from this study indicated that gender, academic self-efficacy, teacher-student relationship, attitudes towards teachers and classes, and attitudes towards school were significant predictors of academic buoyancy for the whole sample, while course of study and academic aspirations did not predict buoyancy. Academic self-efficacy emerged as the most significant predictor across the three different levels of students’ academic buoyancy for both Express and Normal stream. Findings also indicated that teacher-student relationship significantly predicted buoyancy for Normal stream students but not for Express stream students. Students with positive attitudes towards teachers and classes tended to have a high level of academic buoyancy while those with negative attitudes towards school were more probable to have low level of academic buoyancy. This study also discussed the implications for interventions in schools aimed at cultivating students’ academic buoyancy.