By Jennie Dilworth, Ph.D
Keywords: hope, academic achievement, optimism, GPA, positive psychology
Can being a hopeful person help you be more successful in college? Is hope an applied concept or is it more akin to “faith” or “optimism” without concrete objectives?
These were questions that guided me in reviewing the research on hope and how it affects academic achievement. Hope has been the subject of research for several decades, and academic achievement makes up a large proportion of research on hope.
First, let’s define what hope is. The following definition is from the research of C.R. Snyder, the identified father of hope theory.
“A positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful agency (goal-directed energy) and pathways (planning to meet goals)”[1] (p. 287).
According to this definition of hope, there are two important components: agency and pathways. You can think of agency as your will to succeed, a sort of “I can do it!” attitude. The pathways component represents your ways of achieving success, or “This is how I will do it!”. These two components of hope are what separate it from the construct of optimism, which tends to be a more general attitude that everything will turn out alright in the end. The goal-oriented nature of hope is what helps those with high hope to be successful. A person with high hope believes in his/her ability to achieve important goals (agency) AND can come up with a plan (pathway) for reaching those goals. All of us occasionally encounter obstacles to achieving our goals, but the person with high hope is adept at anticipating and resolving such obstacles. The pathway component of hope includes an ability to generate alternative paths to goal achievement if obstacles are encountered.[2]
Research has found correlations between hope and academic performance from elementary school through college. Hope exerts an independent effect on academic achievement even when controlling for other correlates of achievement such as intelligence, previous grades, and entrance exam scores. For example, one study considered whether hope contributes something unique to academic attainment apart from general intellectual ability and conscientiousness (a personality trait associated with success).[3] This study found that hope made a unique contribution to final course grade, separate from the role of personality traits and intelligence, and the “pathways” component of hope was more influential than the “agency” component.
Can hope be a sustaining influence beyond one grade in one course to encompass one’s entire academic career? A longitudinal study addressed this question, tracking students from their freshman year until graduation.[4] This study compared students classified as having “high hope” with those classified as “low hope,” measuring their GPA in the first two semesters of college and at the time of graduation. Compared to those in the “low hope” group, students with “high hope” had a higher GPA in the first two semesters of college (even after controlling for ACT scores), a higher cumulative GPA at the end of college, and were more likely to graduate rather than drop out of college. These findings point to the role of hope in helping new college students establish goals that will positively impact their success in college.
Another study that assessed group differences, this time between high-hope, average-hope, and low-hope groups, found significant between-group differences.[5] Using Portuguese high school students, the researchers found that students in the high hope group scored significantly higher than other groups on all indicators, including grades, life satisfaction, mental health, feelings of self-worth, and school engagement. Since these variables were measured using self-report data, one might question the objectivity of these students and wonder if reports of others might yield different results. Another study addressed this gap by including teacher-report and objective data, in addition to self-reports.
A longitudinal study of Australian adolescents included teacher reports of student behavior in addition to subjective and objective measures.[6] In addition to hope, other variables of interest included self-esteem, attributional style, and teacher-reported behavior. This study struck yet another blow to the self-esteem literature that proposes that children with higher self-esteem will fare better in school. Even when controlling for pre-existing verbal and numerical ability, hope was the only significant predictor of grades (self-esteem and attributional style were not significant). Hope was positively correlated with teacher-reported behavior such that those with low hope were more likely to exhibit behavior problems.
Student engagement is a buzzword frequently heard on college campuses. The more students are engaged in their education, such as interacting with faculty and engaging in active and collaborative learning, the more likely they are to succeed in completing higher education. Measures of student engagement are now regularly administered to college students (CCSSE at community colleges; NSSE at four-year institutions). Yet another mechanism by which hope can impact college success is via student engagement. Yoon et al.[7] found that hope had a weak direct connection to GPA, but that student engagement served as a mediator between hope and GPA. Thus, hope was linked to student engagement, and student engagement was strongly related to GPA and to vocational identity. These results highlight the important role of student engagement as a key to academic success, positively impacting that success via more active involvement in learning. The focus on achieving one’s goals (hope) has a direct correlation to activities that include career exploration, attending career fairs, and other activities that make up vocational identity.
Socioeconomic status is a well-know correlate of academic achievement, such that students from higher socioeconomic groups are more likely to graduate from college than those from lower socioeconomic groups. It is common for students to believe that coming from a low-SES background may disadvantage them in pursuing their academic goals. However, hope has been found to mediate the relationship between SES and academic achievement. In the first study by Dixson et al.,[8] predictive pathways were analyzed using hope and SES as predictors of GPA among adolescents. When hope was added to the model, SES was no longer a significant predictor of GPA. In a second study by the same research team, they included only minority 9th and 10th grade students attending an urban high school. The results of the second study matched those of the first: when including hope in the model, it became the only significant predictor of GPA. These interesting findings support the idea that possessing hope, a cognitive attributional style that can be learned, may reduce the negative effects of SES on academic achievement.
In summary, hope is a construct connected to agency or will and to goal-attainment. Research has established that hope is a unique construct, separate and distinct from related constructs such as optimism, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. In longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, hope has been found to be a good predictor of course grades, GPA, and likelihood of graduating from college, even when holding other known predictors of academic achievement (like intelligence) constant. Student engagement is one mechanism by which hope increases the likelihood of success in college. Hope is a stronger predictor of academic achievement than socioeconomic status.
©Jennie Dilworth, Ph.D
[1] Snyder, C. R., Irving, L., & Anderson, J. R. (1991). Hope and health: Measuring the will and the ways. In C. R. Snyder & D. R. Forsyth (Eds.), Handbook of social and clinical psychology: The health perspective (pp. 285-305). Elmsford, NY: Pergamon.
[2] Snyder, C. R. (2000). Hypothesis: There is hope. In C. R. Snyder (Ed.), Handbook of hope: Theory, measures, and applications (pp. 3-21) San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
[3] Day, L., Hanson, K., Maltby, J., Proctor, C., & Wood, A. (2010). Hope uniquely predicts objective academic achievement above intelligence, personality, and previous academic achievement. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 550-553.
[4] Snyder, C. R., Shorey, H. S., Cheavens, J., Pulvers, K. M., Adams, V. H., & Wiklund, C. (2002). Hope and academic success in college. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(4), 820-826.
[5] Marques, S. C., Lopez, S. J., Fontaine, A M., Coimbra, S., & Mitchell, J. (2015). How much hope is enough? Levels of hope and students’ psychological and school functioning. Psychology in the Schools, 52(4), 325-334.
[6] Ciarrochi, J., Heaven, P. C. L., & Davies, F. (2007). The impact of hope, self-esteem, and attributional style on adolescents’ school grades and emotional well-being: A longitudinal study. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 1161-1178.
[7] Yoon, H. J., In, H., Niles, S. G., Amundson, N. E., Smith, B. A., & Mills, L. (2015). The effects of hope on student engagement, academic performance, and vocational identity. The Canadian Journal of Career Development, 14(1), 34-45.
[8] Dixson, D. D., Keltner, D., Worrell, F. C., & Mello, Z. (2018). The magic of hope: Hope mediates the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement. The Journal of Educational Research, 111(4), 507-515.