Assessing Resilience among Malaysian University Undergraduates

Resilience is a process of adapting well and bouncing back from difficult experiences. It is an essential coping strategy that individuals need to possess when they are facing stress or difficult situations in life. Resilience helps students to adapt and cope with stressors skillfully. Thus, resilience should be a common skill that needs to be learned and developed. This study aims to assess resilience among undergraduates; to examine differences with regard to gender and field of study among undergraduates in a university in Penang. A total of 2604 first year undergraduates (male = 796, female = 1808) participated in this study. The responses were collected using a 26-item questionnaire developed specifically for this study. The result showed that the undergraduates from the School of Health Sciences showed the highest mean score while their counterpart from the School of Electrical Engineering demonstrated the lowest mean score. There is no statistical difference in resilience between male and female undergraduates. Significant differences in resilience, however, were reported between the two fields of study, especially between undergraduates from pure and applied sciences with other schools. The present study also documented moderate and positive relationships between resilience and the acquisition of problem-solving skills. How to improve resilience among undergraduates as well as directions for future research is also discussed in this article.