Tagasalo Personality and Academic Persistence among Breadwinner Students: A Mixed Method Study

Breadwinner students – those who simultaneously fulfill the dual role of being full-time students and the sole financial providers for their families. This study aims to explore the relationship between the tagasalo personality and academic persistence among breadwinner students. Additionally, it seeks to examine their lived experiences in balancing academic responsibilities with familial obligations. A mixed-method approach was employed using an explanatory sequential correlational research design. The quantitative phase involved 30 college-level breadwinner students from Richwell Colleges, Incorporated who responded to a composite research questionnaire adapted from established scales measuring tagasalo personality, locus of control, and self-efficacy. Meanwhile, the qualitative phase, with the use of researcher-made open-ended questionnaire, was conducted through an in-depth interview with 5 purposively selected participants to enrich the quantitative findings. Quantitative data were analyzed using Pearson’s Correlation in SPSS, while NVivo-supported thematic analysis was used to interpret qualitative responses. As to the findings, the study shows that majority of the respondents came from the age group of 18-22 years old, which means that most of the breadwinner students of Richwell Colleges, Incorporated are in this age group. Also, most of them were females, showing 20% higher than the male respondents. It also revealed a statistically significant relationship between tagasalo personality and academic persistence, leading to the rejection of the study’s null hypothesis. Specifically, a moderately negative correlation was found, indicating that higher levels of tagasalo personality are associated with lower levels of academic persistence among breadwinners. These findings highlight the value of recognizing the unique and intricate challenges breadwinner students have been experiencing and the need to provide a personalized support system and a more inclusive educational policy that will assist students with the tagasalo personality to be more persistent in their academic matters.