Hardiness Training for High-Risk Undergraduates
We evaluated the effectiveness of hardiness training in improving the retention rates and grade-point averages offirst-semester high-risk undergraduates. Undergraduates in the experimental group underwent hardiness training as a regular semester course. The control group consisted of demographically comparable undergraduates who underwent either a traditional student-enrichment or a leadership-training class. These control-group courses were taught by the instructors of the hardiness-training classes. At the end of the year following training, the experimental group showed a significantly higher increase in grade-point average and a trend toward greater retention than did the control group.
Contributor Notes
After many years of teaching at the University of Chicago, Salvatore R. Maddi (whose E-mail address is srmaddi@uci.edu) is currently a professor in the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. Having achieved an international reputation, his research and practice has emphasized hardiness, creativity, and existential psychology in their various life applications.
Deborah M. Khoshaba teaches in the Department of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University and also at the University of California, Irvine. Her research and practice concerns both hardiness as a key to resiliency, and the application of existential psychology to relationships and self-definition.
Keith Jensen is Director of the Trio Student Support Service at Utah Valley State College. His research and practice emphasizes hardiness as a tool for personal development.
Elaine Carter is Chair of the College Success and Academic Literacy Department at Utah Valley State College. Her research and practice has emphasized differences in learning styles, matching pedagogy to learning styles, critical thinking, and reading competency.
Both John L. Lu and Richard H. Harvey are graduate students in the department of Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. Lu's research and practice interests are in subjective well being and hardiness as factors in cancer recovery. Harvey's research and practice interests are in physiological reactivity to stressful learning tasks as a function of hardiness level.
