Resilience Quotient of Undergraduate Accounting Students in a Private College

The study measured the resilience quotient of Bachelor of Science in Accountancy students of Tayabas Western Academy in Quezon, Philippines. Using the adapted standardized questionnaire of the Russell Consulting Inc. (2009), students assessed the eight dimensions namely self-assurance, personal vision, flexibility and adaptability, organized, problem solver, interpersonal competence, socially connected and proactive in a 6-scale Likert style. A complete enumeration of the 95 accounting students from all the levels during the Academic Year 2014 – 2015 was used as the sample. Findings revealed that BSA students of TWA are ‘resilient’ with ‘personal vision’ as the highest while being ‘organized’ as the lowest ranked dimensions. However, there was quite a high percentage of students within the lower resiliency borderline. For this, the teachers and the institution must provide more opportunities to develop students’ resiliency dimensions through various academic and non-academic programs. As the study opens door to different factors and angles on the issue, the results suggest for further scrutiny of the topic.


Introduction
There are uncertainties that highly affect the emotional and psycho-social well-being of students. For most of the undergraduates, these uncertainties such as nature, scope and extent of a chosen course become hindrances. Enrolment to the so-called 'quota courses' offers different set of requirements and standards prompting pressured students to shift to another course, transfer school or even drop out. Although these adversities are needed for future growth and development, students face challenges, stress, odds and disruptions in their entire academic journey. On the negative side, these might weaken the psychological and emotional stability of the students if not given proper motivation and guidance. However, every human unknowingly has its own fighting mechanism to these adversities called resilience, a term that implies stability in the face of change. In education, academic resilience among students has been underscored in various studies due to its association with academic success. As defined by Hassim (2016), academic resilience refers to "an energy and drive to learn, the ability to work effectively, and achieve academically in spite of stressors and risk factors".
According to Fergus & Zimmerman (2005), despite environmental adversities, there is increased likelihood of academic success if students are resilient. There is strong evidence that resilience can be learned and developed (Reyes, 2015) which allows students from all levels be more proactive in facing academic pressures. In the Philippines, the nature of the undergraduate programs offers variety of academic stressors during and even after the completion, a highly relevant scenario in board examination courses.
A more relevant feature is the undergraduate accounting course -Bachelor of Science in Accountancy (BSA). Students in this course are trained to pass the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Board examination after the completion of the four or five years.
Commonly tagged as one of premiere courses, colleges and universities set certain limits and standards in the academic achievement of the students to qualify and continue the course.
This allows limited number of students to complete the program with the expectations of better prepared for the board examination. With the downward trend in the passing results of the CPA Board Examination, colleges and universities put more pressure on the undergraduate students. The statistics as revealed by the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) showed from a 24.4% passing rate on May 2013 to a 20% passed on July A Publication of the Institute of Industry and Academic Research Incorporated www.iiari.org 3 2014. As the trend is going down every examination, every institution is now tasked to bring tougher and tougher academic demands to students. With the current academic environment, Pidgeon & Pickett (2017) add new academic stressors such as social networks, financial changes and adaptation of new family and social roles.
Several studies associate academic resilience with the academic achievement. For instance, Mwangi, Okatcha, Kinai & Ireri (2015) found a positive and significant relationship between academic resilience and academic achievement of the 390 secondary school students in Kiambu County. This primarily explains that without resilience certain risk factors often lead to emotional dilemma, failure and dropout (Arif & Mirza, 2017). Wills & Hofmeyr (2018) also found that resilient students are different from lower-achieving peers in terms of socio-emotional and individual-level protective factors. There are several academic factors associated with resilience as well. Chow, Tang, Chan, Sit & Choi (2018) found that resilience was a significant predictor of well-being while hope (Botor, 2019), self-efficacy (Cassidy, 2015), optimism (Molinero, Zayas, González & Guil, 2018), peer connections and spirituality (Ekwonye & DeLauer, 2019) significantly predict resilience. As resilient students interact with the environment (Zautra, 2009), the role of school, teachers and counselors are primarily important (Franklin, 2017). As Lee (2009)

Factors affecting academic resilience
According to Masten (2014), resilience is interplay between individual characteristics and the broader environment. The innate qualities of a person are generally affected by the impending forces surrounding him. As the external environment offers various forces delivering changes, chaos and challenges, a person has the ability to withstand with these forces and continue surviving. For Werner and Smith (1982), these invulnerable individuals possess remarkable set of qualities. Bernard (1991) identified traits of resilient individuals which include social competence, problem solving, autonomy and sense of purpose and belief. Brooks and Goldstein (2003) add some mind-sets common to resilient individuals such as being in control, effective communication, decision making skills, ability to establish realistic goals and expectations and capacity to learn from both success and failure. However, Masten (2001) believes that resilience is a developmental process not just a plain identification of individual qualities.
In terms of academic resilience, Pidgeon & Pickett (2017) stress that undergraduate students face new set of stressors such as social networks, financial changes, and adaptation to new family and social roles. These external factors highly impact on the ability of the students to carry out academic demands. However, Zautra (2009) affirms that the test of resiliency begins when a person interacts with the environment. The healthy interactions with the external environment forces develop a sense of well-being. Ekwonye & DeLauer (2019) add that social integration and peer connections are positively correlated to academic resiliency. As such, the whole school community develops the resilience of its students in which Franklin (2017) noted that school climate, the role of teacher-student and counselor relationships are important in the development of resilience in students while Lee (2009) notes on the role of caring and supportive adults.
Academic resilience is associated with several factors and indicators. For instance, Cassidy (2015) identified self-efficacy as a predictor of academic resiliency while Molinero, Zayas, González & Guil (2018) found that optimism determines the resilience of the university undergraduate students. However, in most of the studies measuring the academic resilience of undergraduates, gender was commonly identified as important factor. For A Publication of the Institute of Industry and Academic Research Incorporated www.iiari.org 5 example, Frydenburg (2004) contended that compared to boys, girls were more disposed to, turn to others, think hopefully, and resort to tension-releasing strategies. In addition, they were more inclined to engage in these behaviors as they became older. In addition, Frydenburg and Lewis (2000) have a very good realization on the age of male and female.
By the time girls reach the age of 16, they were more apt to declare personal helplessness and an inability to cope compared to boys (Frydenburg, 2004). However, turning to professionals for help with problems decreased significantly at the age of 15 than at the ages of 13 and 17 (Frydenburg, 2004). It appears imperative that youth be provided with coping strategies and other resilience based mechanisms by the age of 16.
Another notable predictor of academic resilience is age.  (2017) found that life experiences of mature-aged students contribute to higher resilience. This implies that higher level students have stronger resilience as they have developed more confidence and efficacy.

Impact of resilience on academic performance
According to Arif and Mirza (2017), students' psychological and emotional problems often lead to failure and dropout. In this concept comes academic resilience. For Rutter (1993) (2012) found that the students with higher resilience quotient have higher academic performance. Similarly, Deb & Arora (2012) found that the engineering and medical students with high resilience had better academic performance. In addition, Lee (2009) observed that at-risk female students' grades are highly related to their resilience level. However, Buslig (2019)

Measuring Resilience through Resilience Quotient (RQ)
The study used the Resilience Quotient (RQ) formulated by Russell Consulting Inc.
(2009) as its framework. The dimensions measured in the human resilience include the following: Problem Solver. It measures the skills in problem analysis and creating lasting solutions.
Interpersonal Competence. It measures the ability to understand and empathize with others.
Socially Connected. It measures the quality of personal and professional network of relationships.
Proactive. It measures how people actively engage in changes around them.
The assessment has 32 statements answerable by a 6-scale Likert style interpreted as: strongly disagree (1); disagree (2); slightly disagree (3); slightly agree (4); agree (5) and strongly agree (6). There are no right or wrong answers in the assessment. The statements explore perceptions of oneself and interactions with the environment and others. Being honest in the self-assessment as to whether agree or disagree with each of the statements is critical for the most accurate RQ score. The maximum RQ score is 192. The lowest possible overall score is 32. For individual RQ dimensions, the maximum possible score is 24; the lowest possible score is 4.

Figure 1
The RQ Radar Chart In interpreting the meaning of RQ radar chart involves examining the overall size of the "wheel" (a wider suggests greater resilience) and the "balance" or proportionality of the wheel. A wheel out of balance would be evident if the scores indicated low level of resilience in one or more dimensions as compared to the other dimensions.
In order to measure the individual RQ dimensions, the RQ sheet need to be accomplished. In the RQ sheets, the 32 statements are allocated as to the dimension measured. Each score obtained per dimension is totaled to get the RQ scores. From the total of each dimension, the overall RQ score is obtained.

Figure 2
The RQ Score Sheet

RQ Dimensions
Tally Box RQ Scores

Methodology
This study employed the descriptive-quantitative research method. It surveyed the students enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Accountancy at the Tayabas Western Academy, a private college in Quezon, Philippines during the first semester of the academic year 2014-2015. There was complete enumeration of the 95 enrolled students from the first level to the fourth level. The demographic profile of the students is presented in the following tables.

Table 1
Demographic Profile of BSA students in terms of Gender organized; problem solver; interpersonal competence; socially connected; and proactive.
The researcher personally conducted the data gathering through a secured permission from the college authorities to conduct the survey. During the classroom visit to conduct the survey, the researcher introduced and explained the purpose of the study prior to the distribution of the questionnaire. Questionnaires were then retrieved, checked and verified after the completion. The data gathered were tabulated and calculated using the standard score sheet. The scores of each dimension were calculated using frequency, percentage and mean. Table 3 summarizes the eight dimensions of the resilience quotient of the undergraduate accounting students in Tayabas Western Academy. The results of the assessment were measured in terms of frequency and percentage. The eight dimensions were assessed using several statements reflecting their attitudes and characteristics.

Findings and Discussion
In terms of self-assurance, 4.21% got the highest score of 24, the highest individual score for each resilience dimensions. Most of the respondents scored 19 and 20 in this dimension whereas more than 50% of the respondents scored from 18 to 21. The statements included under the dimension include: "I believe that I have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to deal with almost anything that happens to me" (statement 1), "I think and speak positively about myself and my abilities when facing a challenge or stress" (statement 9), "When I face difficult challenges I am able to maintain confidence in my abilityone way or anotherto overcome the challenge" (statement 17), and "When I face great challenges,

I look within myself for the answers about what to do and how to respond to the challenge"
(statement 25). Majority of the students assessed were not fully developed in this dimension.
Although they scored far beyond the average, it can be inferred that they need more A Publication of the Institute of Industry and Academic Research Incorporated www.iiari.org 11 motivation to develop high self-assurance and face their own challenges with confidence so as not to lose self-esteem.

Table 3
The Eight (8)     of the students scored below the threshold of being and not being resilient. These areas need to be developed further to make students very resilient and face challenges with great vigor and courage. The small percentage of the students who scored very resilient is an indication that the school needs an intervention program for them to stay in the course and pursue their dreams of becoming the next CPA. the interpretation from the RQ framework, the overall RQ score of the accounting students is interpreted as 'resilient'. The overall tabulation suggests that students need more development programs to be very resilient. As there are always rooms for improvement, the results should serve as wake up call for responsible persons to make necessary programs for further growth of the students.

Conclusion
The study measured the resilience quotient of the 95 BSA students of Tayabas Western Academy using the standard questionnaire adapted from the Russell Consulting Inc. Although the overall assessment found that students are resilient, there were high percentage of students within the borderline of resiliency as depicted by 36.84% somewhat resilient and 2.11% lower resilience. For this, the teachers and the institution must provide more opportunities to develop students' resiliency dimensions through various academic and non-academic programs. Key focus on the team work and group strategy to support weak students with peer learning and mentoring. Relevant to the findings of cited studies that academic resilience is correlated to academic achievement, the teachers should motivate A Publication of the Institute of Industry and Academic Research Incorporated www.iiari.org students to strive hard so they can pursue and become CPAs. Nonetheless, the results suggest for further department developmental plans.
As the study opens door to different factors and angles on the issue, the results suggest for further scrutiny of the topic. The authors admit various limitations of the study including statistics and scope. Since the study is a prelude to a more comprehensive scope, it has lay down the foundation for determining the level of students' resilience. It is suggested to develop further analysis on the topic including gender analysis, correlation to academic achievement and relation to the passing of the board examination.