A Resilience Intervention to Increase Academic Persistence Among Undocumented Students in Higher Education

Abstract

We designed a resilience intervention in the form of a self-help workbook. It was made to address the challenges of being an undocumented student. The workbook includes modules on increasing social support, hope for the future, and emotional openness. In an initial feasibility study, participants reported that the workbook contains valuable information. A second feasibility study that incorporated eight weekly group meetings led to significantly higher ratings regarding the utility of the intervention.

COVID-19 Pandemic Psychological Distress, Multi-Dimensional Social Support, and Mental Health Symptoms Among Hispanic Undergraduates

“…Thus, further research is needed to assess the relevance of the stress buffering hypothesis ( Cohen & Willis, 1985 ) in the context of coronavirus psychosocial stress among Hispanic undergraduates. Resilience interventions tailored for Hispanic undergraduates also warrant future consideration ( Kwon et al, 2020 ). The pandemic distress measures in this study were recently developed with limited evidence of invariance for Hispanic students, specifically the FCS with no published data on internal structure for Hispanic students.…”

Pedagogical approaches to support student resilience in higher-education settings: A systematic literature review

“…An important implication of this is that policy-and community-level programs appear to be comparatively less evaluated and, consequently, that there are a number of important specific aspects that require further study if such strategies are to become more effective. For instance, determining key characteristics or competencies that relevant staff and group member co-facilitators should possess (Kwon et al, 2020), implementation process and longitudinal evaluations (Elmi, 2020;Fried et al, 2018) and examinations of program efficacy with inter-disciplinary samples (Daniels et al, 2015). Although these developments may be partially owing to feasibility considerations related to implementation, budgets or timelines, structural approaches to promoting student resilience seem vital, given the noted rise in demand among university students for mental health and resilience programs (Center for Collegiate Mental Health, 2017).…”

“…Examples generally reflected efforts to promote social cohesion and integration, or awareness of institutional resources. In pursuit of these goals, one illustrative intervention developed a self-help resilience workbook for undocumented students and included materials related to both integration (e.g., undocumented student testimonial about the value of social support) and resource awareness (e.g., links for online support resources at host university) (Kwon et al, 2020). A couple of more targeted interventions leveraged extant community-level resources and networks to enhance integration: one tasking senior-level student mentors to guide first-year students in dealing with stressors and providing them with support (Fried et al, 2018) and another utilizing a peer-coaching program approach to aid graduate students in developing their coping abilities (Fried et al, 2019).…”

Exploring academic resilience: A review of Bibliometrics and potential directions for further research

“…This analysis is re ective of studies that underscore the signi cance of mental health and socio-emotional support in students' ability to maintain academic performance amidst adversities such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Garagiola et al, 2022;Kwaning et al, 2023;Martinsone et al, 2022). Particular attention is given to the construct of 'burnout', especially within the demanding context of medical education, pointing towards an urgent need for interventions that bolster psychological resilience in student populations (Kwon et al, 2020; J. A.…”

“…Academic resilience is related to concepts such as grit, academic self-e cacy, academic persistence and academic buoyancy. n (Montas et al, 2021;Kwon et al, 2020;Martin, 2013). Studying academic resilience provides a way to see how students can achieve (Fang et al, 2020) and academic success (Borjian, 2018) Research on academic resilience experienced a very rapid increase in the period 2020-2023 when the world of education faced the covid 19 pandemic.…”