How Resilience, Academic Stress, and College Readiness Influence Mathematics Performance
Keywords:
Academic stress, College readiness, Mathematics performance, Resilience, Teacher educationAbstract
First-year students in teacher education programs frequently struggle with mathematics, yet the combined influence of resilience, stress, and college readiness on their academic outcomes remains insufficiently explored. Grounded in Resilience Theory (Masten, 2001), the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), and College Readiness Theory (Conley, 2007), this study examined how adversity quotient (AQ), academic stress, and college readiness jointly predict mathematics performance among 189 BEEd and BSEd first-year students at Cagayan State University–Aparri. Using total enumeration sampling and validated, adapted instruments, data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, comparative tests, and hierarchical multiple regression. Students reported high AQ (M = 3.84), high academic stress (M = 3.81), and moderate-to-high college readiness (M = 3.53), with an overall high mathematics performance (M = 87.14). Only academic stress (β = −0.934, p = .002) and parental income (β = 0.0008, p = .012) significantly predicted performance, accounting for 8% of the variance. AQ and college readiness showed no direct predictive effects once stress and demographics were controlled. These findings suggest that stress appraisal is a more proximal influence on mathematics achievement than dispositional resilience or readiness, pointing to the urgency of stress-regulation programs and socioeconomic support in teacher education.
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