Understanding how to generate resilience during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic is essential, especially for undergraduate students. Many could not engage with peers and professors to study or to access critical resources on campus. Research has identified positive reappraisal as an effective coping strategy for promoting resilience (Kuhlman et. al., 2021; Li & Hu, 2022). However, little is known about if and especially when positive reappraisal plays a role in the COVID-19 resilience of undergraduate students; longitudinal methods are also lacking (Kuhn et. al., 2022). This study aims to examine if positive reappraisal at the beginning of the semester contributes to academic harm from the pandemic and resilient responding to the pandemic among undergraduate students at an urban college during the height of the pandemic. An online questionnaire was given to a sample of undergraduate students at California State University, Dominguez Hills (N=299), predominantly Latinx (68%) and female (73%), at the beginning and end of two semesters. The survey measured positive reappraisal, academic harm from the pandemic, grit, and resilient responding to the pandemic at both time points; multiple linear regressions were conducted with positive reappraisal at T1 as the predictor of the dependent measures (i.e., pandemic academic harm, pandemic resilience, and grit) at T2. Test results supported our hypotheses that positive reappraisal would predict less academic harm from the pandemic, more grit, and more pandemic resilience. This study provides further evidence that positive reappraisal supported the academic function and resilience of urban college students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic was an extremely chaotic and precarious time for many individuals, especially families with children. While there has been considerable research demonstrating how adults were negatively impacted by anxiety and social isolation, little research has been done to study the impacts of Covid-19 on the developing person, namely those ages 0-5. In terms of development, research has been focused on adolescents and teenagers, leaving a large gap in understanding how young children managed stress and disorder during this time. My research will focus on the emotions of parents whose children are integrating into the school system for the first time, having missed out on some major developmental milestones associated with peer engagement. Questions will be associated with their child’s preparedness academically and socially as well as emotion levels associated with this transition. I will be surveying parents whose children entered into kindergarten and transitional kindergarten during the 2021 and 2022 school years.

Many college students experience chronic or overwhelming stressors. Students who develop resilience, an individual's capacity to persevere in the context of adversity, may be more equipped to mitigate the harmful effects of stress. Mindfulness, a non-judgmental present-moment awareness, can also reduce stress. Previous research indicates that mindfulness and resilience are positively correlated and are predictors of college students' psychological well-being. Academic motivation also influences students' stress and well-being, yet the relationships between mindfulness, resilience, and academic motivation are largely unknown. This study investigated dispositional mindfulness, an individual's innate propensity to be mindful, and resilience in relation to both academic outcomes (i.e., test anxiety, academic performance, and academic motivation) and psychological outcomes (i.e., perceived stress and psychological well-being). We hypothesized that dispositional mindfulness and resilience would positively correlate with academic motivation and psychological well-being and negatively correlate with test anxiety and perceived stress, respectively. Regression models analyzed mindfulness and resilience as predictor variables and psychological and academic outcomes as criterion variables. Approximately 50 college students completed a cross-sectional online survey. Preliminary Pearson's correlational analyses indicated that mindfulness and resilience were positively correlated, and both were positively correlated with psychological well-being. Mindfulness, but not resilience, was negatively correlated with cognitive test anxiety. Preliminary analyses found insufficient support for the relationship between mindfulness, resilience, and academic motivation. A larger sample size is needed to be more confident in the results. Future research can examine the constructs in this study before and after the implementation of mindfulness interventions.