Extreme Profiles of Sense of Coherence and Their Relationship with Academic Failure in English Among First Year University Students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70577/asce.v5i1.734Keywords:
University Students; Academic Failure; English As A Foreign Language; Psychosocial Profiles; Sense Of Coherence.Abstract
Academic failure in subjects such as English represented a considerable problem during the first years of higher education. Sense of coherence, the core concept of the salutogenic model, was defined as a psychosocial resource related to academic adaptation; however, studies examining differences between students located at the extreme levels of this model have been limited. Therefore, the objective of this study was to compare students with low SOC and those with high SOC in relation to academic failure in learning English as a foreign language. Differences in its three components: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness were also examined. A quantitative cross sectional study was conducted with a sample of 285 first year university students. SOC was measured using the SOC-13 scale, and the total score was used to construct tertiles in order to identify the extreme groups. Academic failure was defined as failing the English course. Descriptive analyses, intergroup comparisons, and binary logistic regression adjusted for age and sex were performed. The results showed a higher prevalence of academic failure in the group with low SOC (23.1%) compared to the group with high SOC (14.5%). Logistic regression indicated that belonging to the high SOC group was associated with an approximate 50% reduction in the probability of failing. The three SOC components showed statistically significant differences, and meaningfulness showed the largest separation between groups. Overall, the findings suggest that lower levels of SOC are associated with higher academic risk.
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