Oranit Davidson

ABSTRACT The goals of the study were to examine personal resources and social distress during the first month in college among students with learning disabilities (LD) and to compare their experiences with non-LD peer. The sample consisted of 335 first-year undergraduate students falling into two groups: 85 students with LD and 250 non-LD students. Questionnaires assessed hope, dispositional optimism and loneliness. We hypothesised that, after participation in a single-session hope intervention workshop, the hope and optimism levels of both students with LD and without LD would increase, while their loneliness would decrease. However, after a month of facing the academic and social demands of their new college environment, we expected that the hope and optimism scores of students with LD would be lower than their peers without LD and that their loneliness scores would be higher. As hypothesised, both groups reported enhanced hope and optimism, as well as lower loneliness, immediately after the workshop. However, students with LD - but not their peers - returned to baseline levels of hope and loneliness after a month. Loneliness after a month predicted lower hope, after controlling predictors from the beginning of the year.

ABSTRACT The current study examines the relationships of students’ grades and goal achievement to changes in three personal resources (hope, self-efficacy and optimism), before and following participation in a focused hope intervention. According to Hobfoll’s (Am Psychol 44:513–524, 1989) conservation of resources paradigm, people attempt to amass and protect personal resources (i.e., aspects of the self linked to resiliency), and existing resources can be mobilized in pursuit of further resources and achievements. The goal of the study was to identify individual differences related to changes in these resources and their relationships with academic achievement over time. Based on Snyder’s (The psychology of hope. Free Press, New York, 1994) Hope Theory, and augmented by concepts drawn from self-efficacy and optimism theories, 83 first-year college students participated in a focused hope intervention workshop. The results highlight individual differences in hope levels. Particularly, we found an interaction of time and hope levels on academic achievement. Students who achieved higher levels of hope following the workshop attained higher grades in the semester following the intervention, even though mean grades were not statistically different before the intervention. Optimism and self-efficacy scores both increased immediately following the workshop, but displayed different trajectories at follow-up. Hope manifested more consistent relationships than optimism or self-efficacy with grades over time. The implications of these changes for future research as well as for intervention in educational systems are discussed.

Many students experience elevated psychological distress during their 1st year at college. Within the salutogenic paradigm (A. Antonovsky, 1987), sense of coherence (SOC), self-efficacy, and hope (in terms of hope theory; C. R. Snyder, 2002) are considered as protective factors in the demanding academic system. Study goals were to examine the outcomes of a focused workshop for 43 students, targeting the promotion of hope, sense of coherence, and self-efficacy for enhancing students' academic adjustment as expressed through their grades. Results revealed an effect over the 3 measurement time-points (before the workshop, immediately after it, and after 1 month), as well as the interactions of time and hope levels. Although their mean grades were not statistically different before the intervention, students who achieved higher levels of hope following the workshop got higher grades in the semester following the intervention. SOC and self-efficacy scores were significantly related both to hope levels after 1 month and to mean grades. The implications of this study for promoting a hopeful orientation in educational systems are discussed, and future interventional research is suggested.