The hope factor: Unlocking student resilience in higher education
2.00-2.30pm
Dr Rachel Colla, University of Melbourne
Hope is a crucial construct in student wellbeing and resilience research, as it has been shown to be both an enabling and protective factor for university students, particularly in the face of uncertainty. However, gaps between scientific theories and students' lived experiences may limit the effectiveness of interventions to enable hope in higher education settings. This session will report on a study to address this gap, exploring university students' conceptualisations and experiences of hope to refine existing models and inform strategies for enhancing student wellbeing and resilience.
The multi-pronged study design addressed three core aims: 1) Examined how students defined hope in relation to their wellbeing; 2) Explored students' lived experiences of hope in the context of academic settings; 3) Investigated students' theories of how hope emerges to support their resilience. A participatory narrative inquiry (PNI) approach was employed, involving 34 ethnically diverse university students in Australia.
Data was collected through both online surveys and a series of focus groups that engaged students as co-researchers to explore the data set. A combination of researcher and student-led analyses included content analysis, reflexive thematic analysis, and participatory sense-making methods. The results highlighted important distinctions between our current theoretical understanding of hope and the lived experience of university students. Most salient was the importance of social supports that are enabled through university systems. Students' depicted hope as emerging through dynamic interactions between a range of cognitive, affective and social factors that can be supported in higher education.
The findings highlight the importance of refining existing theories of hope to better reflect students' experiences and guide the development of strategies to build hopeful capabilities. A more nuanced, contextually diverse theoretical model that integrates cognitive, affective, behavioural and interpersonal factors is proposed. This approach offers promising directions for developing targeted interventions to foster hope, enhance resilience, and improve overall student wellbeing in higher education settings.