The Impact of High School Pandemic Disruption on Academic Resilience in College

Author

Gillian Gahagan Wilcox, University of Montana, MissoulaFollow

Year of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Arts (MA)

Department or School/College

Psychology

Committee Chair

Jacqueline Brown

Commitee Members

Stephanie Ashcraft, Veronica Johnson

Keywords

COVID-19, academic resilience, adolescents, educational benefit, high school instruction type

Abstract

To overcome significant academic hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students must be academically resilient. Academic resilience is the capacity to overcome adversity as it relates to academics (Martin, 2013). Academic resilience is predictive of school enjoyment, class participation, self-esteem (Martin & Marsh, 2006), and academic achievement (Wang et al., 2024). During the pandemic, schools moved online or modified instruction to reduce the spread of COVID-19. As a result, there was significant learning loss, reduced academic engagement and motivation, and increased distractibility and disconnection for students across the globe (Garagiola et al., 2022). This academic adversity compounded the stress that adolescents already experienced in high school by unleashing a host of novel stressors (Simoës-Perlant et al., 2022). Now, some of these high schoolers have decided to pursue higher education. The current study surveyed undergraduates at the University of Montana. The effect of pandemic instruction type in high school (online, in-person, hybrid) on academic resilience in college and two moderating factors (high school location and COVID-19 stress level) were examined. Results found no significant difference in academic resilience across high school instruction types and no moderation effects. COVID-19 specific stress was predictive of academic resilience, independent of instruction type. Academic resilience in this sample was found to be higher than similar studies from before and during the pandemic (Cassidy, 2015; Lady, 2021), indicating potential differences in college student resilience post-pandemic. Main limitations included recruitment challenges for the in-person high school instruction group and the sample not including pandemic high school students who did not pursue college. These results highlight a need for future research to examine the effect of pandemic learning on academic resilience post-pandemic.

Recommended Citation

Wilcox, Gillian Gahagan, "The Impact of High School Pandemic Disruption on Academic Resilience in College" (2025). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 12578.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/12578