Post-Pandemic Resilience Coping and Thriving Among Higher Secondary Students in Thrissur Kerala

Abstract

Higher secondary students had their academic, social, and emotional lives interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper examines the correlation between internal coping, external coping, and resilience among higher secondary students in Thrissur, Kerala. The survey was a cross-sectional quantitative survey done among 440 students who were sampled in the district in government, aided, and unaided higher secondary schools. The questionnaire measured pandemic-associated issues, internal coping (emotional regulation, self-efficacy, optimism), external coping (social support, family involvement, educational resources), and resilience, based on validated Likert-scale measures. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) revealed acceptable model fit ( χ²/df = 2.10, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.05) and internal coping strategies were found to be more related to resilience (β = 0.84 for emotional regulation, β = 0.76 for self-efficacy, β = 0.54 for optimism) were identified as particularly important predictors of resilience, whereas the social support and family engagement played the role of buffering against pandemic-related stressors. The results indicate that it is essential to enhance the personal coping strategies and supportive family and school conditions to enable students to overcome post-pandemic academic and emotional stress. Longitudinal studies and sample sizes that are larger and more varied are suggested to analyze long term impact of coping mechanisms on student resilience in Kerala and related situations.