First year student resilience as a factor in retention and engagement

There is a limited literature related to the links between resilience and transition for first year students. In Criminology and Criminal Justice, students enter careers identified as high stress employment sectors, e.g. child safety, policing, and corrections and it is important to incorporate into our teaching, strategies that will build resilience for success in these challenging employment sectors. In order to do this we need to understand the resilience factors that our students bring or do not bring to the beginning of their studies. In semester one of 2010, the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice investigated the resilience attributes that first year students had brought to their studies. This project involved both pre- and post- surveys as well as focus groups and individual student interviews. The data presented here will provide a summary of our findings and highlight the strategies identified as being useful in resilience building.