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Academic Resilience and its

Importance in Education a er Covid-
19
Jonathan Beale

Eton Journal for Innovation and Research in Education, Issue 4, on The Future of Education after
Covid-19

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Penultimate draft of article forthcoming in the Eton Journal for Innovation and Research in Education, Issue 4,
on ‘The Future of Education after Covid-19’.

Academic Resilience and its Importance in Education after Covid-19

Jonathan Beale

To be resilient means to be robust and adaptable in the face of adversity – the ability to ‘bounce
back’ quickly from difficulties. Students, educators and educational institutions require a great deal
of resilience to cope with and recover from the enormous impact the pandemic is having on
education. We all need to be as psychologically and physically resilient as we can be; and institutions
need much ‘organisational resilience’ to continue adapting to the ongoing significant changes
education is having to make.1
There is an additional type of resilience that many students need, particularly right now.
Research on resilience in the context of education refers to a specific kind known as ‘educational’
or ‘academic resilience’. This article offers an explanation of what academic resilience is and why
it is important. The article suggests that it is especially important now, given the huge challenges
Covid-19 has raised for education, and that the future of education would benefit from more
research in this area and increased focus on developing academic resilience in students.

1 What is academic resilience?

Academic resilience (‘AR’) is a student’s capacity to overcome acute or chronic adversities in
academic settings that could constitute major impediments to their academic success (Martin &
Marsh 2009, 353). Academically resilient students are those who maintain ‘high levels of
achievement, motivation and performance despite the presence of stressful events and conditions
that place them at risk of doing poorly in school and ultimately dropping out of school’ (Alva
1991, 19, quoted in Martin & Marsh 2009, 355).
AR was posited to provide a context-specific form of resilience that could be studied in
research on resilience (Cassidy 2016, 1). It is a construct made up of several measurable
components. Research suggests that five factors are significantly correlated with and significant
predictors of AR, all of which are character skills or dispositions: self-efficacy; a sense of control;
effective planning skills; perseverance; and low anxiety. Studies show that resilient students are
‘high in self-efficacy, persistence, and planning, and low in anxiety and uncertain control’ (Martin
& Marsh 2006, 276). On the basis of these, two leading researchers on AR, Andrew J. Martin and
Herbert W. Marsh (2006) propose what they call a ‘5-C’ model, where AR is a construct made up
of those five factors:
1. self-efficacy (which they also term ‘confidence’);
2. co-ordination (i.e., planning skills);
3. a sense of control;
4. composure (i.e., low anxiety);
5. perseverance (which they also term ‘commitment’) (ibid., 267).

1 For a useful definition of organisational resilience, see the British Standards Institution’s overview.
While Martin and Marsh describe these as ‘factors’ (loc. cit.), all of these can be understood as
character skills or dispositions which can be measured and developed. Interventions that aim to
develop AR would, therefore, fall within the purview of character education – although not
exclusively. The 5-C model suggests that interventions that attempt to cultivate students’ AR
should aim to develop their self-efficacy, sense of control, perseverance and planning skills, and
reducing their anxiety (ibid., 277).
While all five of the above character skills or dispositions are significant predictors of AR (ibid.,
273), studies suggest that some are more significant than others. Anxiety is the strongest, as a
negative factor – that is, a lower level of anxiety correlates with and predicts higher AR (ibid., 274).
Self-efficacy is also particularly important. ‘Self-efficacy’ is the belief we have in our own abilities,
specifically our ability to meet the challenges we face and successfully complete the tasks we need
to (Akhtar 2008; Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997). Research suggests that,
• self-efficacy is ‘an important contributory factor for resilience’ (Cassidy 2015, 8, based on
studies by Hamill 2003 and Martin & Marsh 2006);
• self-efficacy is an important characteristic that distinguishes resilient and non-resilient
students aged 16-19 (Cassidy 2015, 3, based on a study by Hamill 2003);
• where students have positive beliefs about their self-efficacy, this ‘is likely to contribute
toward increased resilience’ (Cassidy 2015, 8);
• ‘academic self-efficacy’ is correlated with and is a ‘significant predictor’ of academic
resilience (Martin & Marsh 2006, 277).
A striking research finding concerning self-efficacy is that differences in how individuals perceive
self-efficacy ‘have often been shown to be better predictors of performance than previous
achievement or ability’ and seem ‘particularly important when individuals face adversity’ (Cassidy
2015, 3; Cassidy 2012). In one study, students with higher self-efficacy reported significantly higher
AR (Cassidy 2015, 8). The development of self-efficacy in students should therefore play a central
role in interventions that aim to develop AR. This has formed an important part of some
interventions (e.g., Cassidy 2015 and Martin & Marsh 2006).

2 Academic resilience and academic buoyancy

The way that AR is defined limits it to academic experiences requiring a high level of resilience.
But students face many less significant academic challenges in their everyday lives that often
require a degree of what it seems appropriate to call ‘resilience’. For example, many students
receive grades below expectations and critical feedback on their work; most students make
transitions between levels of study; many students change institutions during their time in
education, some several times; and some students have to adjust their future aims and plans in
light of their academic performance and experiences. These all require adaptability in the face of
academic challenges, which sometimes takes the form of adaptability in the face of adversity – the
standard way of defining resilience.2
Many instances of these are not, however, so significant as to constitute major potential
impediments to academic success, and therefore do not fall within the purview of AR.

2See, for example, the definition given in the American Psychological Association article on ‘Building your
resilience’ (2012).

2
Nevertheless, through such experiences, some students become motivated to work harder or
identify areas in need of improvement whereas others become demotivated. Some students
improve over time despite many setbacks while others plateau. Some students adapt quickly to the
sudden and substantial changes between educational levels, such as the transition between GCSE
and A Level study or between school and university, but others struggle.
How can we account for common academic experiences that seem to require a degree of
resilience, such as those above, without amending the concept of AR, which is limited to academic
experiences that require a high level of resilience? Martin and Marsh address this issue, arguing
that AR does not map onto the many students who are ‘faced with setbacks, challenges, and
pressures that are part of the ordinary course of life’ (2009, 356). They respond by proposing the
related concept of academic buoyancy (‘AB’) to map onto such experiences: the ability to ‘negotiate
the ups and downs of everyday academic life as distinct from acute and chronic adversities relevant
to more traditional constructions of academic resilience’ (ibid., 353). AB aims to ‘bridge the gap
between traditional treatments of academic resilience of acute, chronic, intense, and sustained
adversity experienced by the relative few … and everyday adversities experienced by the many’
(ibid., 356). AB is distinct from AR in that the latter refers to the capacity to overcome significant
adversity that threatens a student’s educational development, whereas the former refers to more
common and relatively insignificant adversity. Martin and Marsh argue that AB and AR are both
important factors underpinning ‘students’ positive connections to school and academic life’, and
students’ ‘ability to “bounce back” when they face minor and major academic adversity’ (ibid., 354).
To be sure, there are few academic experiences that we could say, without some attention to
context, require AR in order to recover from them quickly. Those that we might be able to say
require AR with little attention to the wider context are experiences such as expulsion or
suspension from school; changing school multiple times; moving to a school in a new country; or
a student feeling like they have repeatedly and significantly underperformed in exams over a long
exam period. But for the vast majority of academic experiences, we can only understand the way
in which they may affect a student through attention to wider contextual factors. These could
include evidence of a student’s academic abilities; their character; the presence of any special
educational needs; and particular events that may be taking place in their personal lives that could
impact their academic success.
Taking this point into account, we can draw two conclusions about AR. First, an adequate
understanding of a student’s AR or the experiences for which they may need AR rather than AB
requires attention to a wide set of factors concerning and information about the student, in
academic and pastoral domains. Second, AR could be needed by any student during their
education. A student may have an excellent academic record yet be experiencing chronic
adversities in their personal life which could seriously impede their academic success. Or, a poor
test result could be crushing to a student who has never received anything other than good results
and could thereby become a major impediment to their academic success, especially if they have
never learned how to bounce back from what they perceive as a major academic failure. The
examples of common academic experiences given at the start of this section, such as receiving
grades below expectations, would fall within the scope of AB, unless they constitute acute or
chronic adversities that could seriously impede a student’s academic success, in which case they
would fall within the scope of AR.
It should be noted that both AR and AB are important throughout all educational levels and
at the professional level. Many academics require AR and AB to recover from common

3
experiences such as repeated rejections from journal article submissions, often received with
acerbic criticism from reviewers which is sometimes scathing. Most freelance writers also need a
lot of AR and AB to adapt to the repeated rejections writers often receive when trying to publish
articles or books. (It is well known that J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s
Stone was rejected by 12 publishers before being accepted by Bloomsbury.3)

3 Why is academic resilience important?

Resilience is a character strength that is likely to positively impact a person’s health, well-being,
performance and achievement (Cassidy 2016, 2). Studies show that resilience is associated with
increased quality of life, well-being and functional capacity in times of adversity. Studies also show
that,
• resilience is a significant predictor of the degree to which students cope at university (loc.
cit., based on a study by McLafferty et al., 2012);
• there is a positive relationship between academic resilience and academic achievement
(Cassidy 2016, 2, based on a study by Fallon, 2010);
• the increasing vulnerability to mental illness among university students ‘implies low
resilience in coping with academic stress and change’ (Cassidy 2016, 2).
Those research findings concern resilience in general. Current research on and strategies for
developing resilience in students tends to focus on psychological resilience in general rather than
academic resilience in particular. With regard to AR specifically, developing AR can improve
students’ chances of academic success and support their well-being. It can also help to prepare
students to cope with and recover from adversities that risk impeding their academic success.
Studies suggest that AR is a strong predictor of self-esteem, enjoyment of school and class
participation (Martin & Marsh 2006, 277).
The development of resilience in students has been recognised as a vital component of
character education and resilience has become a staple part of some character education
programmes in recent years. Wellington College has taught resilience as a timetabled subject since
2006.4 Stanford University’s ‘Resilience Project’, which started in 2011, focuses on developing
academic resilience.5 Resilience occupies a prominent place within school inspection frameworks.
The UK school inspection bodies, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and
Skills (Ofsted) and the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), identify resilience as one of the
character traits they monitor when assessing schools’ provision of personal development for
pupils.6

3 See Alison Flood, ‘J. K. Rowling says she received “loads” of rejections before Harry Potter success’, The
Guardian, 24 March 2015.
4 See ‘Character can and should be taught in school, says Hunt’, BBC News, 12 February 2014.

5 See ‘Learning academic resilience at Stanford’, Stanford University Families’ website, 9 April 2018.

6 See Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework (2019), §28, p. 11 and ISI’s Inspection Framework (2017), p. 13.
For an overview of the role of character in education in Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework and a
discussion of the importance of resilience in character education, see my blogposts on these two respective
topics for the Tony Little Centre for Innovation and Research in Learning blog (17 September 2019 and 1
October 2019).

4
 AR is important for all students. As Martin and Marsh note, AR is ‘relevant to all students
because at some point all students may experience some level of poor performance, adversity,
challenge, or pressure’ (ibid., 267). Students need to be resilient to adapt their methods of learning,
studying or working in the face of academic challenges or setbacks in order to improve. This will
often require AB rather than AR. It is difficult to say which is the more important skill to develop:
while AB is needed more of the time by greater numbers of students, the potential risks for those
students who lack AR are greater if they encounter significant academic challenges or adversity. It
is not yet clear whether or to what extent the development of AB supports the development of
AR, or vice versa. It is also not clear how AR is connected to other types of resilience – for
example, whether and to what extent being highly psychologically resilient makes a person
academically resilient, or how the development of AR could develop psychological resilience
generally. Moreover, it is not yet clear how AR and AB relate to certain other character skills, such
as grit, motivation and determination, or where they fall on a web of types of resilience in relation
to other character skills. Research in this final area could build upon Martin and Marsh’s 5-C
model. All of these are important questions on which future research in this area will hopefully
shed more light.
A great deal of resilience is needed by all students and educators to get through the pandemic
and to adapt to the huge impact it is having on education. Many of the experiences students have
undergone or will endure during this time could constitute acute or chronic adversities which may
seriously impede their academic success. AR is, therefore, particularly important in education right
now.
It will take a long time for education to fully recover from and adjust to the changes it has had
to make this year. Education after Covid-19 will be substantially different in many respects. The
future of education could benefit from more research that aims to improve our understanding of
academic resilience and how to develop it.

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