Effects of University Students’ Participation in Learning Community Programs on Academic Self-Efficacy, Resilience, Institutional Commitment, and Academic Achievement

Abstract

Objectives This study investigated the effects of university students’ participation in learning communities as extracurricular programs on their academic self-efficacy, resilience, institutional commitment, and academic achievement. Methods A total of 72 undergraduate students attending a 4-year university in Korea participated in the study. They all have participated in learning community programs for one semester and were tested for their academic self-efficacy, resilience, institutional commitment, and academic achievement before and after their learning community experiences. Pre- and post-test data for these dependent variables were analyzed using SPSS 28.0 through paired sample t-tests. Results The analysis found that the participating students’ overall academic self-efficacy and all of its three sub-factors showed a statistically significant increase. Similarly, the resilience area also showed a significant increase in pre-post comparison, and significant increases were confirmed in the control and sociability sub-factors. The participating students’ level of university engagement in total and in two of the three sub-factors showed a significant increase. No significant difference was found in academic achievement between pre-test and post-test results. Conclusions The results of this study confirm that learning community programs in universities can have a positive impact on important areas for university students such as academic self-efficacy, resilience, and university engagement. This suggests that various learning community programs be facilitated in many universities to promote improvement in these areas.