Not just surviving, but flourishing – insights into student coping, anxiety and motivation

The aims explored the associations between distress and eustress ratings and coping influences (support, hardiness, personality and cognitive and emotional strategies), on anxiety and learning motivation. Undergraduate students in a UK university, (N = 184), were surveyed on stress demands and coping influences against anxiety and learning motivation. Hardiness-commitment and extraversion were associated with lower anxiety; neuroticism and defensive pessimism with higher scores and neuroticism mediated between stress demands and anxiety. Optimism did not help. Extraversion did and was associated with better cognitive and emotional coping and it mediated between hassle ratings given to support and anxiety. Defensive pessimism was used to good effect by those anxious-prone – there was no difference in learning motivation between those high in defensive pessimism and those high in extraversion. Eustress experiences of the course were associated with higher motivation, as was hardiness-commitment. Course hassle ratings lowered motivation. This might indicate course shortcomings and/or the stress associated with learning.

The results suggested extraversion, defensive pessimism, support and hardiness offer effective coping, along with key cognitive and emotional strategies. All are adaptable qualities, even extraversion can be feigned. Students should look to emulate the strategies and ingredients of good copers and, educators, with little imagination in course design, could help cascade good student-coping.