Coping profiles associated with resilience, academic engagement, and social support in university students

Adjustment of first-year students to univer-sity environments, as well as their academic success, is not exclusively related to their academic aptitude; instead, this adjustment is associated with psychological characteristics, personal and even social resources that help students cope with stressors and new circum-stances. A comprehensive assessment of the students' adjustment to university environment must transcend preoccupation on academic performance, and instead explore associations among psychological, academic, and social elements that promote adaptation during the initial years of higher education (Marenco-Es-cuderos et al., 2021). In this line of research, the objective of this work was to inquire how internal characteristics of students (psycho-logical and academic) interplay with external elements in their support systems to promote adaptation in a higher education environment. Associations were explored among resilience, academic engagement, and social support as determining elements in the adjustment to the demands of the university context. The sample consisted of 371 undergraduate students (60 % female), of low socioeconomic status, enrolled in public universities in the Caribbean region of Colombia. Firstly, the resilience of university students was explored, as the ability to respond to obstacles with a positive view of the world, of others, and of one's own abilities to cope with stressors (Saavedra-Guajardo et al., 2019). Second, the level of engagement that drives young students to concentrate their energies on academic activities was reviewed; and third, the role of peers, and friends as the close -sup-port system that facilitates the overcoming of personal and academic difficulties was inves-tigated (Fernandez-Martinez et al., 2017). Based on a statistical cluster analysis, by the agglomerative hierarchical method, individuals were classified according to their similarities in the expression of 12 dimensions of resilience (SV-RES scale), and subsequently compared in terms of engagement (UWES-S scale), and personal support networks (UNICET soft-ware). The results showed four student profiles: (1) the largest group consisting of students with low-resilience, high engagement and strong support networks; (2) a resilient group with low levels of engagement and support networks with little intimacy; (3) a resilient group with high characteristics of autonomy, intermediate levels of engagement, and support networks with weak structure; and (4) a very resilient group, high engagement, and wide and strong social support networks. The results point out the fact that the greatest proportion of students who start college show profiles of low resilience, however, high levels of motivation for studies and social resources such as peer support networks are the conditions that mostly allow for coping with adversity in the first years of college. These results could point to cultural aspects specific to the Caribbean region, where social networks are of great importance for daily functioning (Marenco-Escuderos et al., 2021). Regarding the association among the studied variables, it is important to note that only the last profile gathered all elements of high resilience, high engagement, and strong support networks that allow for confirming the association among these constructs. The other three profiles represent cases in which the resil-ience traits are independent of the students' levels of engagement and the composition of their personal support networks. This study is valuable as it provides a differentiating picture of the relationship of resilience with other psychological and social constructs, and in that it allows to better understand resilience in association with other elements that mediate its interpretation. Important gender differences among the profiles are additionally discussed.