Profiling resilience among construction management students: an international comparison

Elevated levels of psychological distress are becoming more prevalent for students in higher education. Given this concerning trend, there has been a call to action. Resilience is identified as a capability that can assist students to manage their stress and increase wellbeing. The Resilience at University scale was administered to construction management students in Australia, the United States, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Two hundred and twenty-nine students completed the survey. Principle components analysis identified five resilience factors: finding your calling/living authentically; managing stress; maintaining perspective, staying healthy; and building networks. Results indicated significant differences between countries on all resilience factors. Of the four countries, Singapore was the most resilient and Hong Kong had the lowest score for all resilience factors. Capacity to maintain perspective was low for all students, irrespective of country. First year students had a lower capacity for finding their calling / living authentically than for other year levels. Final year students had a higher capacity to manage stress than commencing students. The results suggest that demographic characteristics and situational determinants may have a bigger impact on resilience than discipline of study. Findings offer important implications for the development of resilience among university students.