Resumen: Introduction: Coping Strategies and Resilience have emerged as two variables that
determine behavior when facing stress in academic situations. Current research examines
their role among other motivational-affective variables of a cognitive type. The objective
of this study was to establish how the gender of university students relates to strategies
for coping with stress and to resilience. An interdependence relationship was
hypothesized between students¿ gender and the type of coping strategies used, and
between gender and resilience behavior.
Method: The participants were 243 students from the Psychology degree program at
the University of Almería (Spain). An ex post-facto design was used. The assessment
instruments were: (1) for Coping Strategies, the Escalas de Estrategias de Coping, a
Spanish version of the Coping with Stress Questionnaire by Lazarus and Folman (Chorot
& Sandín, 1987, Sandín & Chorot, 2003), assessing coping strategies that either focus on
the problem or focus on emotion, when managing academic stress; (2) for Resilience, the
CD-RISC inventory, Spanish version (Connor & Davidon, 2003). The latter is a likerttype
scale made up of 25 items and five factors: (1) personal competence, high standards
and tenacity, (2) tolerance of negative affect and strengthening effects of stress, (3)
positive acceptance of change, and secure relationships, (4) control and (5) spiritual
influences. Cluster analyses, correlation and ANOVAs were performed.
Results: Significant differences appeared in the variables assessed as a function of
gender. Female university students scored higher on total coping strategies, and on
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206 J. de la Fuente, M. Cardelle-Elawar, J. M. Martínez-Vicente et al.
coping strategies focused on emotion and on the problem. As for resilience, male students
had higher scores in withstanding stress, while female students scored higher on the
spirituality factor.
Discussion: The results provide evidence of the importance of coping strategies and
resilience in the life of the university student, according to students¿ gender. Furthermore,
they concur with other prior evidence. An important line of research is thus marked out
for the study of motivational and affective variables involved in how university students
learn.
