Gender differences in academic buoyancy: A meta-analysis

Academic buoyancy assists students to successfully overcome everyday academic challenge, setback, and adversity. It is associated with a range of positive outcomes, including wellbeing, motivation, engagement, and achievement. There is a trend in the literature suggesting that female students report lower levels of academic buoyancy than their male counterparts. Given the yields of academic buoyancy for diverse outcomes, the present meta-analysis sought to ascertain if this gender gap does exist consistently across the literature, and if so, to what extent it does and what factors may moderate its effects. Supporting our hypothesis, there was a significant effect size for gender (Hedges' g = 0.21), with males scoring significantly higher than females in academic buoyancy. Moderator analyses yielded mixed evidence, with the gender gap differing as a function of language context and rating scale used. Recommendations for psycho-educational practice and future investigations are discussed.

Educational relevance

Academic buoyancy assists students to navigate everyday academic challenge, setback, and adversity. However, there is a concerning trend suggesting that female students report lower levels of academic buoyancy than their male counterparts. Given the yields of academic buoyancy for diverse outcomes, it is important to concretely ascertain if this gender gap does exist, and if so, to what extent it does and what factors may moderate its effects. The findings from this meta-analysis showed that males report significantly higher academic buoyancy than females. Practice efforts are described, aimed at directly boosting academic buoyancy among females and sustaining academic buoyancy among males. The moderators suggested further practice-oriented guidance especially for females in English-speaking contexts (whereas gender effects were not so salient among males and females from non-English-speaking contexts).