Coping Strategies and Self-Efficacy in University Students: A Person-Centered Approach.

Antonio Valle,Bibiana Regueiro,Susana Rodríguez,Carlos Freire,María Del Mar Ferradás,José Carlos Núñez

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00841

Abstract

In daily academic life, students are exposed to a wide range of potentially stressful situations which could negatively affect their academic achievement and their health. Among the factors that could be weakened by academic stress, attention has been paid to expectations of self-efficacy, which are considered one of the most important determinants for student engagement, persistence, and academic success. From a proactive perspective, research on academic stress has emphasized the importance of coping strategies in preventing harmful consequences. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in discovering the extent to which individuals are able to combine different coping strategies and the adaptive consequences this flexibility entails. However, studies using this person-centered approach are still scarce in the academic context. On that basis, this current study had two objectives: (a) to examine the existence of different profiles of university students based on how they combined different approach coping strategies (positive reappraisal, support seeking, and planning) and (b) to determine the existence of differences in general expectations of self-efficacy between those coping profiles. A total of 1,072 university students participated in the study. The coping profiles were determined by latent profile analysis (LPA). The differences in the self-efficacy variable were determined using ANCOVA, with gender, university year, and degree type as covariates. Four approach coping profiles were identified: (a) low generalized use of approach coping strategies; (b) predominance of social approach coping approaches; (c) predominance of cognitive approach coping approaches; and (d) high generalized use of approach coping strategies. The profile showed that a greater combination of the three strategies was related to higher general self-efficacy expectations and vice versa. These results suggest that encouraging flexibility in coping strategies would help to improve university students’ self-efficacy.

Highlights

The mental health of university students has been a growing concern in recent years (Milojevich and Lukowski, 2016)
The following were used as reference parameters to determine the optimum model: the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), the Schwarz Bayesian information criterion (BIC), the BIC adjusted for sample size (SSA-BIC), the formal adjusted maximum likelihood ratio test from Lo et al (2001) (LMRT), the parametric bootstrap likelihood ratio test (PBLRT), and the sample size for each subgroup
Previous research has demonstrated the importance of coping strategies and self-efficacy in the prevention of stress, the relationship between these two psychological resources has not been the focus of attention previously in the university context

Summary

Introduction

The mental health of university students has been a growing concern in recent years (Milojevich and Lukowski, 2016). Stress can bring with it significant harm to the student’s academic performance (e.g., reduced ability to pay attention or to memorize, less dedication to study, and more absences from class) (Chou et al, 2011; Turner et al, 2015), as well as to the student’s physical and psychological health (e.g., substance abuse, insomnia, anxiety, and physical and emotional exhaustion) (Waqas et al, 2015; Schönfeld et al, 2016) These harmful effects have triggered interest in the identification of individual psychological resources that could be protective factors against the inherent stressors of the university context (Tavolacci et al, 2013). Two of the most widely studied resources are coping strategies and self-efficacy

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion