Coping strategies and academic engagement of part-time undergraduate student teachers in Nigeria

Empirical evidence is inadequate in Nigeria to understand the link between the coping strategies and academic engagement of part-time student teachers who face challenges that might impede their academic success. This study adopted the quantitative research paradigm to ascertain part-time undergraduate student teachers’ coping strategy and their academic engagement. One hundred and fifty-five (155) undergraduate part-time student teachers of Nnamdi Azikiwe University formed the sample size. Major findings showed that respondents adopted more of problem- focused coping than emotion-focused coping strategies and were academically engaged. Significant mean differences did not occur based on gender and marital status in the dimensions of coping strategies and academic engagement except in extra- curricular engagement but occurred in coping efficacy, emotional support coping and disengagement coping dimensions affective liking for school, extra-curricular engagement and cognitive engagement based on students’ specialty. Significant positive relationships occurred in almost all the dimensions of coping and academic engagement and the predictive powers of the independent variables on the dependent variables were ascertained. Demographic variables did not significantly moderate the relationship between problem-focused coping dimensions and the academic engagement while they did on emotion-focused coping and academic engagement. Conclusions were drawn and recommendations made based on the findings.