Examining the efficacy of mental skills training for the promotion of academic resilience in higher education

Recent evidence suggests that first year university students are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the stressors involved in the transition to higher education. Although this trend has serious negative implications for student well-being and for institutional goals like student retention and progression, there is a notable lack of studies examining the efficacy of interventions designed to foster the academic resilience of university students. The few studies that have been conducted are undermined by two key limitations: (i) the interventions are too brief (e.g., a single workshop only), and (ii) the psychological indicators of academic resilience are not adequately assessed. The objective of the present study is to examine the efficacy of an academic resilience intervention that addresses these two limitations. To this end, a cohort of first year students from Western Sydney University was randomly allocated to an experimental group or a wait-list control group. The experimental group participated in a series of four one-hour workshops, during which a registered psychologist taught them how three mental skill techniques (i.e., goal-setting, self-talk, and breath-control) can be used in the higher education context. All participants completed both a pre-treatment and a post-treatment set of questionnaires assessing mental skills, student engagement, state anxiety, test anxiety, and academic self-efficacy. Statistically significant improvements in self-talk, relaxation, and student engagement were observed for experimental group participants relative to controls; however, no between-group differences were observed for goal-setting, state anxiety, test anxiety, and academic self-efficacy. The outcome of this study has important implications for the delivery of interventions designed to promote academic resilience in higher education.