Character Strengths and First-Year College Students’ Academic Persistence Attitudes: An Integrative Model

Abstract

Higher education scholars produce the majority of research on student persistence. However, counseling psychologists may be uniquely situated to help students persist toward graduation by enhancing strengths. The present study integrated counseling and higher education models to examine college students’ character strengths (i.e., hope and gratitude) as predictors of student persistence variables (i.e., academic integration and institutional commitment). Drawing on higher education theories of persistence, we examined the mediating effects of academic integration on the associations between character strengths and institutional commitment among first-year undergraduate students ( N = 653). Controlling for social support, greater academic integration mediated the associations between character strengths and institutional commitment in a structural equation model. Consistent with higher education theories emphasizing academic integration as a precursor to institutional commitment, character strengths may be important for understanding academic integration and persistence. Implications for prevention and the integration of counseling psychology and higher education perspectives are discussed.