Resilience in the educational achievement of Colombian students

Abstract

In education, resilient students are those who achieve outstanding academic results despite living in contexts of a low socioeconomic level. In the search for a parallel concept, the term underachieving students is introduced in this paper in reference to those students who, despite having a higher socioeconomic level, obtain low academic results. In this context, the data generated by the Saber 11 national test are used to identify resilient and underachieving students and, with the information available, identify the variables that characterize them. The development of this type of studies is fundamental to design and implement public policies aimed at overcoming the difficulties imposed by the socioeconomic environment of students, by identifying components associated with learning that do not depend directly on the students' socioeconomic level, such as the aspects considered in the mental models of learning and in the orientations towards the educational process. Results show that there are considerable differences between the variables related to the probability of being a resilient student and those related to the probability of being an underachieving student. A higher level of resilience in public schools is observed.