TY - JOUR
T1 - Students coping with change in higher education
T2 - an overview
AU - Co, Mary Jesselyn
AU - Hamadeh Kerbage, Samira
AU - Willetts, Georgina
AU - Harvey, Loretta
AU - Bhattacharya, Ananya
AU - Croy, Glen
AU - Mitchell, Bruce
N1 - Funding Information:
All efforts to support students enhanced their coping capacity (Boyce, 2003; Brown, 2011; Hamadeh Kerbage et al., 2021). All the same, these were variously reported at the element-level (i.e., anxiety, self-efficacy, engagement, and resilience), and sometimes at the component-level, though at times implicitly. Anticipating this, we purposefully adopted an inclusive conceptualization, which was evidently justified to capture relevant reviews. Two aspects emerge from this. First, change in higher education has a demonstrated potential for a wide variety of positive and negative consequences for students (Brown, 2011; Brown et al., 2005; Longden, 2006; Yengo-Kahn et al., 2017). Contrastingly, second, within specific reviews, student coping capacity was seen through a narrow lens (usually one or a component of the four elements) (e.g., Croy et al., 2020; Serhan, 2020; Ye et al., 2020). Importantly, the variety of effect foci is not a criticism of the included reviews. The included reviews were generally focused on the change rather than the outcomes of the change.Purposeful changes, included where interventions were planned, developed, and implemented to mostly address some evident challenge (e.g., difficulties in learning of biosciences in nursing, McVicar et al., 2014), or to take advantage of an opportunity (e.g., introduction of journal clubs to support clinical decision-making, Harris et al., 2011). It was demonstrated that each of these purposeful interventions had positive effects on students' self-efficacy, resilience, engagement, or reduced anxiety. These planned changes were either implemented to a wide cohort (or had the opportunity to be), or within specific curriculum contexts (with nursing being prominent). The reviews synthesizing the effects of generic changes also noted the potential limits to students' coping capacity (Longden, 2006; Yengo-Kahn et al., 2017), and the consequent importance of supporting students (Hamadeh Kerbage et al., 2021). Interestingly, and surprising to us, was that changes imposed upon the higher educational context (e.g., through government regulation changes) were not represented or alternatively this aspect was not reported. From our search, no reviews of imposed changes emerged. Consistent with the outcomes and effects on student coping capacity in the purposeful and generic change, we would anticipate that students would require support through an imposed change, and that this support would also develop students’ longer-term coping capacity.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2023/2
Y1 - 2023/2
N2 - Higher education institutions implement purposeful change to improve their performance or impose changes in response to their external environments. To deal with these changes, students are expected to develop their coping capacity – the emotional and cognitive ability to manage the demands of adverse situations. Student coping is composed of four interdependent core elements – self-efficacy, engagement, resilience and anxiety. This article synthesizes the evidence on the effect of higher education changes on student's ability to cope. Using Polanin et al.’s (2017) overview process, our search generated 551 articles, and after three rounds of screening, the remaining 12 reviews were analyzed using the narrative descriptive synthesis approach. We found that the quality assessment within the included reviews were inconsistent and, sometimes not clearly defined. From the analysis of the reviews, four key themes emerged: (1) change is complex; (2) the nature of change is varied; (3) there is an interdependent relationship between the coping elements; and (4) the measurement of change is not sophisticated. Our findings highlight the need for higher education institutions to adopt a principle-based approach to purposefully develop students' coping capacity, by improving their self-efficacy, engagement, and resilience, and reducing anxiety. Limitations and future research directions are outlined.
AB - Higher education institutions implement purposeful change to improve their performance or impose changes in response to their external environments. To deal with these changes, students are expected to develop their coping capacity – the emotional and cognitive ability to manage the demands of adverse situations. Student coping is composed of four interdependent core elements – self-efficacy, engagement, resilience and anxiety. This article synthesizes the evidence on the effect of higher education changes on student's ability to cope. Using Polanin et al.’s (2017) overview process, our search generated 551 articles, and after three rounds of screening, the remaining 12 reviews were analyzed using the narrative descriptive synthesis approach. We found that the quality assessment within the included reviews were inconsistent and, sometimes not clearly defined. From the analysis of the reviews, four key themes emerged: (1) change is complex; (2) the nature of change is varied; (3) there is an interdependent relationship between the coping elements; and (4) the measurement of change is not sophisticated. Our findings highlight the need for higher education institutions to adopt a principle-based approach to purposefully develop students' coping capacity, by improving their self-efficacy, engagement, and resilience, and reducing anxiety. Limitations and future research directions are outlined.
KW - Engagement
KW - Resilience
KW - Self-efficacy
KW - Anxiety
KW - University students
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146645452&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.edurev.2023.100508
DO - 10.1016/j.edurev.2023.100508
M3 - Review Article
AN - SCOPUS:85146645452
SN - 1747-938X
VL - 38
JO - Educational Research Review
JF - Educational Research Review
M1 - 100508
ER -