Supporting Healthy Affect and Coping After Perceived Failure in College Students in Christian Higher Education

Perceived failure in academic performance can lead to differing outcomes for students. Depending on the coping strategies that they choose, students may improve or worsen their performance. This study examined the relationship between affective components and coping strategies in college students' responses to perceived academic failure and their subsequent academic performance. Data was collected from 122 undergraduate students in 200-level micro and macroeconomics classes at a four-year Christian university in Texas. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires, including the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) to measure positive and negative affect in response to their first exam grade and the Brief COPE Inventory to determine the strategies that participants used to cope with their perceptions of failure on their exam. The results showed that maladaptive coping strategies mediated the relationship between post-test negative affect and subsequent improvement in standardized test scores. This article serves as a call to Christian institutions of higher education to consider how to best support students in developing effective coping strategies when faced with failure.