College health clinics and security find they are responding to more calls related to mental health crisis in recent years. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for young adults on college campuses. College can be challenging for young adults as they leave behind their support systems at home and begin to leave among strangers. Students must adapt and adjust to manage this transition to higher education.
In recent years, students, have demonstrated resiliency challenges when adjusting to every day college stressors. This phenomenon affects students’ ability to successfully cope with challenges of living and learning in a college community. Nursing students experience their own unique type of stressors due to the plan of study rigor. Rosenbaum & Weatherford, (2017) noted that students identified as generation- Z or the I - generation, have experienced different parenting styles than were historically noted. This McNair Senior nursing student scholar is exploring any connections to perceived parenting styles before and during college life which may affect success. Frey, & Tatum, (2016), recognize the need to adapt pedagogy in order to assist students with building resiliency in the classroom. In both didactic and clinical instruction nursing faculty must utilize new strategies of instruction for building resiliency in the generation z nursing student (Boardman, 2016).
In collaboration with a senior nursing student, a McNair Scholar, an extensive literature review was conducted regarding resiliency in college students. A survey tool to compare perceived parenting styles and coping success will be used to survey current college students to explore any connection between resilience and experienced parenting styles in the current generation of college freshman. Odenweller, Booth-Butterfield, & Weber, (2014), suggest that helicopter parenting may have an influence on resiliency development.
This literature review was conducted in summer, 2018. Student surveys will be conducted in fall semester of 2018, using a Likert Scale survey tool, with voluntary completion by college students regarding their experienced parenting styles and current successes in coping with college life.
Reviewing survey results, there will be exploration into ways to maximize resilience (Johnson, Panagioti, Bass, Ramsey, & Harrison, (2017) and grit in nursing students. Methods of coping within the school of nursing will be suggested (Clauss-Ehlers,& Wibrowski,2007). The growth in resiliency, while in nursing school, will not only benefit the student, however, also the future nurse as an employee.