Appreciating professional Master of IOP students’ coping through persona methodology

Orientation: The distance learning professional Master of Industrial and Organisational Psychology (IOP) student faces the challenge of balancing a demanding academic workload with work and life responsibilities. Research purpose: The objective of the study was to better understand students’ coping by crafting an archetypal coping persona of the professional Master of IOP student. Motivation for the study: As research on the coping mechanisms students adopt for safeguarding academic and professional success is scant, further researching the coping persona will promote richer insight into and appreciation of the student population’s needs, goals, anxieties and experiences. Research approach/design and method: The study adopted a qualitative, descriptive-interpretive research design with an open-ended questionnaire survey approach. The persona methodology with qualitative theme analysis enabled the integration of 11 distance learning professional Master of IOP students’ responses into an archetypal coping persona. Main findings: The persona methodology yielded two distinctive and overlapping personae characteristics that describe the core academic and professional goals, fears, needs, coping mechanisms and psychological well-being attributes among M1 and M2/3 professional Master of IOP students. Practical/managerial implications: A better understanding of coping personae uncovers considerations for student selection, retention and success through a curriculum that fosters personal and professional coping capacities among master’s students. Contribution/value-add: The identified personae contribute new insights that extend the student coping literature and inform empathic student academic and professional learning journey support.