Personal resources versus risk factors: From academic achievement to anxiety forms

Learning in the school context involves strong social and emotional components that have a role in academic achievement and children development (Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2007). Among individual factors that prevent or promote school success and emotional well-being at school, different risk factors and personal resources have been considered in the literature. The aim of the present dissertation is to consider the joint role of negative affect, anxiety forms and personal resources related to self-concept and resilience once the effect of cognitive abilities (i.e., working memory or intelligence) is taken into account. The relation among these different variables was addressed in three related studies that involved typically developing children. In the first Study, the interplay between general factors related to negative affect (i.e., general-anxiety and depressive symptoms), working memory and personal resources (i.e., competence and academic self-concept and ego-resilience) on mathematics and reading literacy was considered. In the second Study the relation among general and academic forms of anxiety (i.e., test-anxiety and mathematics-anxiety), and ego-resilience on mathematics and reading literacy was explored after controlling for fluid intelligence. In the third Study, the presence of different anxiety profiles and their relation with general (i.e., competence self-concept and ego-resiliency) or academic (i.e., academic self-concept and academic buoyancy) personal resources was considered. Each study will be presented starting from theoretical background and empirical evidence and then describing methodology, statistical analyses and results. General conclusions derived from the main findings of the three studies as well as clinical and educational implications will be finally highlighted.