How specific patterns of coping, parent support, and school belonging underpin students’ thriving

What is it about?

This study of 10,997 Australian high school students examined the patterns of conditions that best support students’ academic thriving. We were interested both in intrapersonal resources, such as individual coping skills, and external interpersonal resources, such as parent support and school belonging. First, we considered how these different resources cluster together in different student “profiles”, or groups. We identified five distinct profiles, each with a distinct pattern of resources. We then considered how each profile was associated with differential achievement outcomes. Two profiles performed particularly well academically: one high on all resources, and one high on coping skill specifically. This suggested that intrapersonal resources such as coping skill may be particularly important for achievement. Finally, we looked at schools. Some schools were characterised by a higher proportion of these same adaptive profiles; these schools also had higher average achievement. This suggests that supportive school climates are able to bolster coping and success.

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Why is it important?

Past research has shown how a range of intrapersonal and external interpersonal resources support students’ academic success. However, we have not previously known which combination(s) of resources is most important. Our findings indicated that students that had higher levels of coping compared to parent support and school belonging tended to have higher achievement. Moreover, some schools had a greater proportion of such students than others. These findings suggest that educational policies and school practices that foster students’ coping may be critical to improving achievement for students and schools. Interestingly, socio-economic status played an important role in whole school thriving: thus, governments must work to reduce economic inequity and educational inequity simultaneously.

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