ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENT OF UNDERGRADUATES IN CONTEMPORARY HIGHER INSTITUTIONS: EXPLORING THE BUFFERING ROLES OF EGO RESILIENCE, FAILURE TOLERANCE, AND GELOTOPHOBI

Abstract

Several factors today adjust to academics quite daunting for undergraduates. The present study investigated the challenges undergraduate students in typical tertiary institutions face today. The study examined how ego resilience, academic failure tolerance, and gelotophobia relate to students' academic adjustment. The study adopted a cross-sectional design using a survey. Using a convenience sampling technique, four hundred (400) undergraduate students (101 males and 299 females) were drawn from various departments in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka Campus. The age of the participants ranged between 16 and 32 years. Four scales were used for data collection, namely: Ego Resilience Scale (ER89) by Block and Kremen (1996); the Academic Failure Tolerance Test (AFTT) by Kim and Clifford (1988); the Academic Adjustment Scale (AAS) by Anderson et al. (2016); and the Gelotophobia Scale (GELOPH<15>) by Ruch & Proyer (2008). Hierarchical multiple regression was employed to test the hypotheses for the study statistically. The results revealed that ego resilience was positively associated with academic adjustment; students with higher academic failure tolerance were also found to be more adjusted than others, while gelotophobia was also reported to be positively associated with academic adjustment. This result has implications for school counsellors and guardians. Parents and guardians should provide a balanced motivation for their wards. At the same time, schools must launch extracurricular programs to foster ego resilience and academic failure tolerance and introduce them into their counselling package for undergraduate students