Factor structure of academic resilience among Polish and Ukrainian students involved in remote education caused by Covid-19 and military aggression

Abstract

Academic resilience explains how students overcome various challenges or negative experiences that can hinder the learning process. The COVID pandemic as well as war conflicts might be significant factors affecting the structure of the academic resilience of students. This study attempted to assess the extent to which the Cassidy’s construct of resilience can be used to interpret the behavior of other—Polish and Ukrainian samples, under remote education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian military aggression against the Ukrainian civils. Second, the relationships between resilience and students' self-efficacy were estimated. To test the factor structure of the resilience exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. Assumed structure reproduced to a greater extent among Polish (83.4% similarity) than in Ukrainian respondents (from 27 to 40%) and it was three or two factors for Polish and Ukrainian students, respectively. General self-efficacy positively correlated with resilience both among Polish and Ukrainian respondents confirming the concurrent validity of the scale. The discovered differences were explained by differences in the historical and sociocultural experiences of the two nations. If among Ukrainian students historical and social experiences actually lead to the formation of a pattern of Perseverance in Overcoming Problems, then in the factor analysis, this pattern should be reproduced in the form of a single factor. At the same time, experiences with negative emotions should give a second-factor Negative affect and emotional response. The results obtained confirmed this assumption.