Coping Strategies on Academic Performance among Undergraduate Students in Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of coping strategies among undergraduate students in Malaysia. This study used the Three Scales of Academic Coping Strategies (Sullivan, 2010), which was translated into Malay language, it contained 56 statements namely Approach Coping Strategy, Avoidance Coping Strategy, and Social Support Coping Strategy. The respondents consisted of 400 students; there were randomly selected from 13 different schools at Universiti Sains Malaysia. The Effectiveness of Three Scales of Academic Coping Strategies (Malaysia version) was tested for reliability coefficients (Cronbach Alpha) as follows: Approach Coping Strategy (0.96), Avoidance Coping Strategy (0.98) and Social Support Coping Strategy (0.93). The finding showed that 83.3% of the respondents agreed that Approach Coping Strategy helped them to cope with academic performance problems. Furthermore, 82.2% of students agreed for Social Support Coping Strategy helped them to cope with academic performance problems and 69.8% of students agreed with the Avoidance Coping Strategy helped them to cope with academic performance problems.