A Pilot Study into Measuring Resilience

Transcription

1 A Pilot Study into Measuring Resilience Alex Davda March 2011 a

2 Full Report 1

3 Acknowledgements Many people contributed to this work, and thanks go to all, especially to employees of Ashridge and external organisations, whose co-operation enabled collection of an excellent set of data to work with. Ashridge All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Ashridge. 2

4 Introduction Resilience has been defined in a variety of ways across a number of settings, including the ability to bounce back or recover from stress, to adapt to stressful circumstances, to not become ill despite significant adversity and to function above the norm in spite of stress or adversity (Carver, 1998, Tusaie and Dyer, 2004). However, in the context of the present study resilience has been defined as the capacity for an individual to to thrive, to keep going, to struggle through or to give up in the face of a stressor influenced by attitudinal, experiential and physiological differences. Ahern (2006) reviewed instruments which were designed to measure resilience. These generally focused on the protective factors or attitudes which support resilience. This provides guidance into the most effective approach to adopt when designing a measure of resilience. An important theme when seeking to understand the effect of resilience is an individual s perceptual appraisal of a stressful life event. The most widely researched application of this, and a key part of the theoretical basis for the Ashridge Resilience Questionnaire (ARQ), is the concept of hardiness (Kobasa and Maddi, 1982). According to Kobasa (1979), hardiness is a constellation of three hardy attitudes: commitment, control and challenge. This concept was the result of a large scale longitudinal experiment using a sample of Illinois Bell Telephone staff that, during the study, experienced severe disruption and upheaval. The study found that in the six years following the upheaval, two thirds of the sample suffered enormously with illness, stress, violence, absenteeism and marital problems. The other third, however, kept going and some individuals even thrived after this experience. Those who stayed in the organisation rose up in management and those who left used their experience to contribute positively to competitors. These individuals were also reported to experience more energy and vitality and fewer negative health symptoms. The researchers, when comparing the two groups, found the orientation towards hardiness was the key difference between success and failure. The benefits of high levels of hardiness have been demonstrated in a variety of contexts including; the business world (Maddi, 2006), the public sector (Rush Schoel and Barnard, 1995) and the military (Bartone, 1999). Maddi (1998) has also researched the practical benefits of hardiness training. He found that increasing an individual s motivation and the use of a certain coping strategies can help decrease the stressfulness of a situation and enhance hardy attitudes. The conceptual underpinnings of the ARQ are also influenced by what has been described as mental toughness (Clough, Earle and Sewell, 2002). Clough describes mental toughness as a trait-like dimension of personality and an extension of the hardiness construct. Clough s model incorporates the same control, commitment and challenge elements but also includes confidence in terms of interpersonal qualities and confidence in own abilities. Elements of confidence fit with what Bandura (1977) famously describes as self-efficacy; a belief in one s own capacity to organise and execute the course of actions required to manage a prospective situation. The mental toughness approach and the subsequent 48-item Mental Toughness questionnaire (Clough, 2002) has furthered the research on resilience through its application in sports settings. For example, Levy (2006) found that higher levels of mental toughness in athletes was associated with a more positive threat appraisal (perceiving situations as more challenging, a better ability to cope with pain, and in the case of injured athlete a greater attendance at rehabilitation. Mental toughness has also been applied in organisational settings (Marchant et al, 2009) where significant managerial and age differences were found, supporting the view that this underlying attitude can be influenced by life experience. This attitude-experience relationship fits closely with Goleman s (1995) approach to explaining Emotional Intelligence. Goleman 3

5 posits that individuals are born with a general emotional intelligence that determines their potential for learning emotional competencies and that these emotional competencies can developed through learning and experience. The ARQ also acknowledges the importance of balance. This is based around work by Ben C Fletcher (2000) in his FIT Theory and the ideas of Joan Kofodimos (1993). Kofodimos describes balance as a satisfying, healthy and productive life that includes work, play and love. The construct is often confusingly described in occupational research in terms of work/life balance. Marks and MacDermid (1996) define what is seen as work/life balance as an individual s orientation across different life roles and possessing an even-handed alertness to achieving a degree of equality in role commitments. However, in a business sense this equality is often difficult and even unattractive to achieve, as focus in one area often leads to success. Kofodimos (unlike other writers on balance) appreciates this and argues that managers often become obsessed with achieving mastery through structured and measured success in their home and work life. This leads to logic, constant structure and high standards both in and out of work. For example, these individuals may look to structured vacations, be impatient out of work and take on competitive, rather than fun, leisure activities. There are benefits of combining a need for mastery with an orientation towards intimacy and self-development. Intimacy in achieved by an individual focusing on their own and others feelings, tolerating weakness and connecting with others, expressing emotions and being playful and flexible both in and out of work. Managers should attempt to achieve a master/intimacy balance by balancing internal drivers with the often conflicting demands of the external environment. A balanced individual possesses the ability to focus on one dimension of life while retaining the skill to de-focus and switch off as and when appropriate. Balance may also be affected by an individual s perception of job flexibility and the autonomy they possess in and out of role. Research by Hill et al (2001) found that in a sample of 6451 IBM staff, perceived job flexibility is related wit improved work/family balance in employees with the same workload. These employees were able to work longer hours before this workload negatively affected their balance. The ARQ is also theoretically guided by the concept of determination and in a broader sense motivation (what drives an individual to keep going after experiencing a setback). There are a variety of approaches to understanding the concept of motivation at work (McGregor, 1960; Schein, 1988; Maslow, 1954). Leonard (1999) looks at individuals being motivated in two ways; intrinsically (internal) and extrinsically (external). It is important in stressful situations to understand the factors present which drive and motivate an individual to overcome this situation. This could be a person s need for achievement, fear of failure and a sense of purpose (intrinsic) or the support praise or reward offered by others (extrinsic). The decision to include determination in the ARQ was also driven a piece of research (Smith et al, 2008) that argued an alternative approach to measuring resilience. Smith highlights that traditional measures only include protective resources that involve personal characteristics and coping styles and may overlook the actual process involved in being resilient. The Brief Resilience Scale (2008) attempts to measure resilience in terms of bouncing back from stress, so focussing on a single construct which we have described as determination. The result of Smith s exploratory research found that the single factor of bouncing back was linked to health related outcomes (anxiety and depression) and the presence of resilient resources, such as coping styles and social support. 4

6 Aim and scope of the Study The aim of this study was to pilot the ARQ under four different Conditions to provide a greater understanding of the most effective way of measuring and understanding resilience. More specifically, the study aimed to assess whether providing situational context produced a more reliable and valid measure of resilience than providing questions alone. In a practical sense, the hope was that the results of the research would provide justification for the design of a final version of the ARQ, and that this version adopted as an instrument for developing self-awareness, learning and discussion around the topic of resilience. Justification was achieved through undertaking a statistical analysis of each Condition in terms of descriptive statistics, correlations and a reliability analysis. The ARQ is based upon the concepts of hardiness and mental toughness, as well as incorporating elements of motivation, self-efficacy and the concept of balance. Ultimately this provides a series of underlying attitudes that in conjunction with past experience and physiological elements, can support an individual in being resilient when under stress or pressure (Figure 2). The researchers took the opportunity to pilot an applied measure of resilience used in numerous South African organisations. The Personal Resilience Questionnaire (PRQ) (Warner, 2009) was statistically analysed in terms of descriptive data, correlations and a reliability analysis. Correlations between the PRQ and the four Conditions of the ARQ were undertaken, as well as the inter-correlations between the seven competences of each questionnaire. Resilient attitudes The seven resilient attitudes and an outline of the behaviours which can be associated with each of them are outlined below. Included in brackets are original mental toughness and hardiness components: Purpose (commitment) The extent to which an individual has structure, commitment and meaning present in their life. Challenge The way in which an individual perceives situations, solves problems and manages change. Emotional control The way in which an individual controls their emotions in situations and how they attribute this control. Balance How an individual chooses to view the world and the distribution of care and attention given to aspects in their life. Determination An individual s ability to remain motivated and bounce carry on after difficulty or adversity. Self-awareness (confidence in abilities) An individual s belief in themselves and their capabilities, as well as the accuracy of these self-estimations. Awareness of others (interpersonal confidence) An individual s awareness of others and how this affects how they behave, including how an individual communicates, interacts and empathises with others 5

7 Stressor Attitudes Purpose Control Challenge Balance Determination Self awareness Awareness of others Psychological (Emotional response) Your Perceptual Appraisal of The Stressor Resilience Outcome 1. Thrive, 2. Carry on 3. Struggle through 4. Give up Experience (Values, Beliefs) Physiological Factors (Age, Health, Diet, Sleep) Figure 2: Conceptual Resilience Cycle The attitudinal element is measured by the Ashridge Resilience Questionnaire (ARQ). Physiological (Physical response) Method Participants The study consisted of a sample of 136 participants (45 males and 91 females) working in UK based organisations. 74 participants worked at and 62 participants came from external organisations. A total of 63 participants worked as managers or specialist staff. This included 17 senior managers/directors, 17 general managers/senior professionals and 29 department managers/specialist staff. A total of 71 participants worked at staff level. 65 participants were under 35, 60 participants were between 36 and 55 and 11 participants were 55 and over. Apart from the Ashridge staff, other participants worked in a variety of organisations including; manufacturing, construction, finance, retailing/distribution and other business services. Participants came from various work groups including; HR/management development, sales and marketing, customer services, research and development and other services. All participants gave consent for their responses to be used for research purposes. Instruments The purpose of the study was to pilot the newly developed 58 item ARQ which assesses total resilience and the seven resilient attitudes: purpose, emotional control, challenge, balance, determination, self-awareness and awareness of others. Each item is rated on a seven point Likert-type scale anchored at 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree and the questionnaire includes six items which are reverse scored. Example items include; feel a valuable part of decisions made (purpose) feel challenged more than threatened (challenge) feel governed by logic more than emotions (emotional control) easily balance the demands that appear (balance) 6

8 feel like giving up (determination) feel confident in defending own views (self-awareness) feel comfortable sharing own point of view (awareness of others). At the same time the PRQ (Warner, 2009), a practical measure of resilience that has been used with South African organisations, was also used as part of the research to test the construct validity of the ARQ. This PRQ is generally used in applied occupational settings to develop insight and awareness. The principles behind the questionnaire were developed through critical incident and focus group interviews with South African employees (Warner, 2009). The opportunity to investigate the reliability of this measure and the possible relationship with the ARQ was therefore also adopted. The measure is a 35 item instrument which assesses Total Resilience, again on seven sub-components; Connect to your purpose and meaning in life Use your unique strengths Maintain perspectives Generate positive feelings Be realistically optimistic Persevere by being open minded and flexible Reach out to others. Each item is rated on a five point Likert scale in terms of 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Example items are I feel my life has meaning (connect to your purpose and meaning in life) and I accept myself for who I am (use your unique strengths). Procedure Participants were approached via and asked if they were willing to take part in a pilot study on resilience. All participants who expressed an interest in taking part were included in the study. All participants were sent the PRQ which also included demographic data on gender, age, and job level, type of organisation and area of work. Participants were then randomly grouped into four Conditions to undertake one of four versions of the ARQ. Condition 1: 34 participants were provided with 58 items of the ARQ. As part of the questionnaire participants were asked to read an initial situational scenario and six subsequent smaller situations based on survival in a Russian forest. The questions were provided to participants in competency (resilient attitude) order. For example, in responding to situation one, participants were asked seven questions which related to their sense of purpose. Condition 2: 34 participants were provided with 58 items of the ARQ. They were again asked to read the initial situational scenario and six subsequent smaller situations. However, the questions were then provided to participants in alphabetical order. For example, in response to situation two they were asked seven questions presented in a random order. Condition 3: 34 participants were provided with 58 items of the ARQ. In this Condition they were asked only to read the initial situational scenario and then answer the 58 questionnaire items in alphabetical order. Condition 4: 34 Participants were presented with the statement: In responding to a stressful situation I would and then provided with only the 58 items of the ARQ in alphabetical order. No initial situation scenario or smaller situations were included in this Condition. 7

9 Statistical analyses Data was initially screened for normality and missing values. Cronbachs alphas and descriptive statistics were conducted for each Condition. Correlations were calculated between the ARQ (Conditions 1, 2, 3, 4) and the PRQ. Inter-correlations between the seven sub components of each scale were also conducted. Correlations between gender, job level, type of organisation and area of work and each questionnaire were also conducted. An Independent Samples T Test was conducted between gender and scores on both questionnaires. Finally, the researchers ran a one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to ascertain whether there were significant differences between mean scores on each Condition. Results Table 1 provides the overall correlations between the PRQ and ARQ taken under each Condition as well as all Conditions combined. There was a strong positive correlation between Condition 4 (responding to stress without a situation) and the PRQ and a moderate correlation between Condition 3 (responding with only reading the main situation) and the PRQ. This indicates that the relationship between the two measures of resilience increases as the inclusion of situational contextual information decreases. Tables 2-5 provide the inter-correlations between the seven competences or subcomponents of the ARQ (separated into the four Conditions) and the seven competences of the PRQ. The data is in line with the findings from the overall correlations (Table 1). Every competency on the ARQ under Condition 4 correlates with at least one competency of the PRQ. The competences that are expected to correlate with each other, to an extent do so. For example, the ARQ purpose and the PRQ connect to your purpose show a significant relationship. Similarly, determination on the ARQ correlates strongly with the use your unique strengths competency on the PRQ. One competency from the PRQ which only appears to correlate significantly with a single ARQ competency is reach out to others. This competency correlates to a moderate extent with other awareness, which could be assumed to be the most similar to it. The inter-competency correlations under Conditions 1 and 2 (the complete scenario Conditions) are sparse and inconsistent. Interestingly, the inter competency correlations are to a certain extent present in Condition 3, following a similar trend to the overall correlations between questionnaires (Table 1). 8

10 Table 1: Correlations between Conditions and Personal Resilience Questionnaire. Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3 Condition 4 All Conditions Personal Resilience Questionnaire * 0.80**.54** *p< 0.05; p**< 0.01 (two tailed) Table 2: Correlations between Condition 1 and the Personal Resilience Questionnaire Connect to your Purpose Use Your Unique Strength s Maintain Perspective Purpose 0.40 * 0.34 * Generate Positive Feelings Be Realistically Optimistic Open Minded and Flexible Challenge 0.35 * Control 0.39 * 0.42 * Balance 0.44 ** Determination Self- Awareness Awareness of Others *p< 0.05; p**< 0.01 (two tailed) 0.44 ** 0.41 * Reach Out to Others Table 3: Correlations between Condition 2 and the Personal Resilience Questionnaire Purpose Challenge Control Balance Determination Self- Awareness Awareness of Others Connect to your Purpose Use Your Unique Strengths 0.34 * *p< 0.05; p**< 0.01 (two tailed) Maintain Perspective Generate Positive Feelings Be Realistically Optimistic Open Minded and Flexible Reach Out to Others 0.34* 0.54 ** 9

11 Table 4: Correlations between Condition 3 and the Personal Resilience Questionnaire Purpose Connect to your Purpose Use Your Unique Strengths Maintain Perspective Generate Positive Feelings Be Realistically Optimistic Open Minded and Flexible Challenge 0.38 * 0.40 * 0.54 ** Reach Out to Others Control 0.35 * 0.39 * * Balance Determination 0.38 * Self- Awareness Awareness of Others *p< 0.05; p**< 0.01 (two tailed) 0.54 ** 0.45 ** 0.41 * Table 5: Correlations between Condition 4 and the Personal Resilience Questionnaire Connect Use Your Generate Be Open Minded to your Unique Maintain Positive Realistically and Purpose Strengths Perspective Feelings Optimistic Flexible Purpose 0.49 ** 0.58 ** 0.45 ** 0.68 ** 0.64 ** 0.62 ** Challenge 0.45 ** 0.74 ** 0.49 ** 0.74 ** 0.64 ** 0.66 ** Control 0.36 * 0.72 ** 0.49 ** 0.73 ** 0.50 ** 0.59 ** Balance 0.52 ** 0.69 ** 0.57 ** 0.74 ** 0.67 ** 0.63 ** Determination 0.43 * 0.78 ** 0.53 ** 0.72 ** 0.67 ** 0.54 ** Self- Awareness Awareness of Others *p< 0.05; p**< 0.01 (two tailed) 0.64 ** 0.74 ** 0.52 ** 0.62 ** 0.43 * 0.42 * 0.51 ** 0.63 ** 0.49 ** 0.36 * 0.37 * Reach Out to Others Correlations between demographics (gender, age, job level, type of organisation and work area) and scores on the ARQ and PRQ were observed. A significant relationship was observed between job level and scores on the ARQ (0.65) and PRQ (0.59) only under Condition 4. Therefore, higher job-level relates higher scores on both questionnaires in Condition 4. This is especially interesting as all participants undertook the same PRQ, but the relationship between job level and scores on the PRQ was only present in Condition 4 (when participants received no situational information). Table 6 provides the Cronbach scores for the reliability analysis undertaken on each Condition of the ARQ. A score of 0.70 is generally believed to be acceptable and it can be observed that the scores for Condition 4 are the strongest, indicating that the questionnaire items within these seven competences are the most reliable under this condition and consistently reflect the overall construct of resilience. Included in Condition 4 are the updated scores in brackets if an individual question item was removed from that competency. This indicates a need for the researcher to remove or rephrase or replace these items to further increase reliability. 10

12 Table 6: Reliability Analysis for ARQ (four Conditions) Condition 1 Condition Condition 3 (n=34) 2 (n=34) (n=34) Condition 4 (n=34) Purpose Challenge Control Balance (0.69) Determination (0.71) Self-Awareness Awareness of Others (0.73) Table 7 provides the Cronbach scores for the reliability analysis undertaken on the PRQ. It can be seen that some of the principles appear to measure the same underlying construct (internal consistency), whereas others do not do this as well. However, this could be due to the small number of items in the scale (five). As this is the case the mean inter-item correlation for the items within each principle are reported in Table 8. Briggs and Cheek (1986) recommend an optimal range for the inter-item correlation of 0.2 to 0.4. Table 8 shows that the majority of the competences do fall within this range apart from use your unique strengths and general positive feelings, which are also the weakest principles in the reliability analysis (Table 7). This questions the reliability of the items within each competency to consistently measure the overall construct of resilience and indicates that the exploratory analysis of both questionnaires has highlighted that the ARQ ( under Condition 4) displays greater internal consistency. Table 7: Reliability Analysis for The Personal Resilience Questionnaire Building Resilience Principles N=136 Connect to your purpose and meaning in life 0.53 Use your unique strengths 0.40 Maintain perspective 0.73 Generate positive feelings 0.50 Be realistically optimistic 0.61 Persevere by being open minded and flexible 0.64 Reach out to others 0.72 Table 8: Mean inter-item Correlations for The Personal Resilience Questionnaire. Building Resilience Principles N = 136 Connect to your purpose and meaning in life 0.21 Use your unique strengths 0.12 Maintain perspective 0.34 Generate positive feelings 0.17 Be realistically optimistic 0.24 Persevere by being open minded and flexible 0.26 Reach out to others

13 Further statistical techniques were carried out in an exploratory manner to test for any significant differences in the data. An Independent Samples T Test was carried out to compare the scores of male and female participants on both questionnaires. There was no effect of gender on any of the Conditions of the ARQ when measured separately. There was no effect of gender for all 136 participants combined from all four Conditions, when the test was run on the whole group. There was only a significant difference in scores on the PRQ in Condition 3 for males (M = , SD = 9.32) and females (M=135.54), t (32) = -0.21, p = (The magnitude of the differences in the means = -0.14, 95% Confidence Interval: ). However, as this difference is not consistent across other Conditions and the data from the PRQ as a whole, it cannot be assumed that there is a gender effect on scores on either resilience questionnaires. A one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was also conducted to determine whether Conditions (1, 2, 3 and 4) affected scores on the ARQ. The group means do not indicate a potential for a difference between mean scores. The ANOVA confirms that there are no significant differences between Condition and scores on the ARQ, F (3,132) =0.24, P = Discussion The aim of this study was to pilot the ARQ under four different Conditions in order to provide a greater understanding of the most effective way of measuring and understanding resilience. This was looked at in terms of providing respondents with situational context and whether this context produced a more reliable and valid measure of resilience, than providing the questions alone. This will guide the researchers into deciding which design of the ARQ to use for future research and classroom sessions at. The ARQ was compared to the PRQ to test for construct validity. Results showed that there was a strong overall correlation (0.54) between scores on the ARQ and the PRQ. However, the strongest correlation was obtained when participants completed Condition 4 of the questionnaire (no situation, 0.80). There was also a moderate correlation between Condition 3 (only main situation) and the PRQ. The correlations between Conditions 1 and 2 and the PRQ were not significant, indicating a lack of a relationship. These results followed a consistent trend as participants who completed Condition 4 did not receive a situation to read. They were asked to think about a situation that was personally stressful to them, rather than a generic forest survival situation. Condition 4 is similar in design to the PRQ and supports the background literature that resilience is driven primarily by an individual and an underlying set of attitudes or personality characteristics, that affect how this individual interprets and manages a stressful situation. According to Richardson (2002): Resilience refers to individual differences that help people cope positively with adversity, make them better able to deal with stress in the future, and confer protection from the development of mental disorders under stress.. Following on from this, both questionnaires contained seven sub-components and it was found that the strongest inter-correlations between competences were achieved between the two questionnaires under Condition 4. This again supports the findings of the overall correlations. More specifically, to a certain extent competences on both questionnaires under Condition 4, that we would assume to correlate strongly, do so. For example there is a strong correlation (0.49) between the ARQ purpose and the PRQ connect to your purpose. There is also a strong correlation between challenge (0.74) and generate positive feelings and also the ARQ determination and the PRQ use unique strengths (0.77). In some cases it can be seen that the correlations between competences that are expected to be the strongest are not always. For example, even though there was a 12

14 strong correlation between the ARQ concept of Balance and the PRQ maintain perspective principle (0.57), this is not as strong as the correlation between factors that appear, based on face validity, less similar. This could be explained by the fact that certain items that have been grouped in one competency in the PRQ could easily have been grouped elsewhere, if basing decisions on the current literature review that formed the basis for the development of the ARQ. These results show that both questionnaires (if Condition 4 is adopted), though designed separately for two different purposes, correlate strongly with each other. Higher scores on one questionnaire relate to higher scores on the other. This supports the validity of both questionnaires and also gives the researcher an early idea that the items on the ARQ are targeting aspects of resilience in the correct way. The PRQ also benefits statistically from this, as it has previously been applied as a practical questionnaire to increase self-awareness, and the relationship between the two implies the need for future research on both measures. Interestingly, the researcher undertook further analysis through correlations between demographic data and scores on both questionnaires. Condition 4 of the ARQ was the only condition that correlated with demographic data. The only demographic data that did correlate with this condition was job level, assessed in terms of staff level, department manager/specialist staff, and general manager/senior professional and senior manager/director. An effect of job level on scores of the ARQ is a significant finding as individuals in higher managerial positions appear to show higher levels of resilience. This supports research undertaken by Marchant et al (2009) on mental toughness. They found that employees in higher managerial positions exhibited increased scores for total mental toughness. This is of further importance as the ARQ is based to an extent on aspects of the five competences used to create the Mental Toughness Questionnaire (MTQ48). Marchant (2009) interpreted these findings in two ways. Firstly, it could suggest that mental toughness (or in our case resilience) can be a significant indicator for level of achievement and managerial position obtained. Secondly, it may imply that over time, through roles in their organisation, more senior employees develop higher levels of mental toughness (or what we call resilience). This study however, also found an effect of age, which was not observed in our research and for this reason MANOVA was conducted in their research to investigate a possible interaction effect between age and managerial position on mental toughness. For example, as older managers are more likely to be in higher positions, this could predict their level of mental toughness. This analysis was non-significant and provides support that higher managerial positions are associated with increased mental toughness (possibly through selection and development) and the effect of age is in fact a separate factor. This managerial effect found in the current research also supports the trainability of hardiness proposed by Maddi (1998). In order to begin to understand the consistency of items in the seven sub components of ARQ a reliability analysis was undertaken (Table 6). In line with earlier findings, Condition 4 of the ARQ yielded the strongest Cronbach results, even with a relatively small sample (n=34) size and only seven items per competency. The findings are as follows; Purpose,0.85, challenge, 0.88, control, 0.76, balance, 0.67, determination, 0.66, self-awareness, 0.71 and awareness of others, A Cronbach of 0.70 is generally viewed as acceptable. As this was an exploratory analysis the researcher obtained the Cronbach score if each individual item was removed. For balance, if questionnaire item become absorbed in the situation is removed the Cronbach will increase to 0.69, in awareness of others if criticise any views I disagree with is removed the Cronbach will increase to 0.73 and in determination if support others is removed the Cronbach will increase to This provides reasoning to remove these three items and re test in an attempt to increase the reliability to an even more 13

15 acceptable level. Interestingly, the weak questionnaire items for balance and awareness of others are some of the few items in the questionnaire which are reverse scored, indicating the Cronbach s may increase, if items are replaced with ones phrased positively in line with the rest of the questionnaire. The reliability analysis was undertaken for the PRQ as well as the mean inter-item correlations of each competency, due to the smaller number of factors (five). Results were inconsistent as the seven competences showed Cronbach scores of between 0.40 and 0.72, as well as low mean inter item correlations. It appears that some of the items within the sub-components of the PRQ may not be measuring the same underlying construct. This supports the earlier point, that if basing decisions on the background research that formed the ARQ, certain questionnaire items of the PRQ may be better placed under different competences. The effect of gender was analysed using an independent samples T Test and there was not a consistent effect (this only occurred in Condition 3), indicating that any variance in resilience scores cannot be consistently explained by gender. A one way ANOVA was conducted to further support the correlational differences between the conditions. However, there was not a significant difference between mean scores on the questionnaire under the four different conditions. Therefore the effect of having a situation does not appear to yield a significant change in scores. It could be the case that conditions themselves included participants with different levels of resilience and these levels were most effectively measured, by using the version of the ARQ which did not contain situational information. The present study highlights the benefits of adopting Condition 4 of the ARQ. This version asks individuals to respond to a stressful situation and provides a series of questions, without providing any situational information. This conclusion was reached as Condition 4 showed a strong positive correlation with the PRQ and also correlated with job level. This Condition also showed high reliability, even with a relatively small number of factors per competency and a small sample size. In turn, it can be agreed that to an extent resiliency can be explained through individual differences, influenced by the possession of certain resilient attitudes (purpose, emotional control, challenge, balance, determination, self-awareness and awareness of others). These differences are best measured by allowing individuals to think of their own potentially stressful situation and self-appraise their ability to manage this situation. However, the Resilience Cycle (Figure 2) also pays attention to the importance of experience and this is supported by the effect of job level in our research and especially relevant in the context of a Management College. Similarly, the benefits of looking at individual s physiological state should also be considered. It could be beneficial to measure an individual s level and quality of sleep, general health, diet and other physical indicators and compare these too scores on the ARQ. Finally, the PRQ is a practical rather than validated measure of resilience and the statistical analysis was in fact a pilot for this questionnaire as well. In order to gain a more empirically sound understanding of the effectiveness of the Ashridge Resilience Questionnaire, it would be highly beneficial to see if there is relationship between scores on the ARQ and on the MTQ48 (mental toughness) and the Personal Views Questionnaire (hardiness). 14

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17 Maslow, A.H (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper and Row. McGregor, J.E. (1960). The Human Side of Enterprise. New York; McGraw-Hill. Richardson, G.E. (2002). The meta-theory of resilience and resiliency, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58, Rush, M.C., Schoel, W.A and Barnard, S.M (1995). Psychology resilience in the public sector; hardiness and pressure for change, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 46 No 1, Schein, E.H (1988). Organisational Psychology, 3rd edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Smith, B.W, Dalen, J, Wiggins,K, Tooley, E, Christoper, P and Bernard, J (2008) The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the Ability to Bounce Back. International Journal of Behavioural Medicine, 15, Tuasaie, K., and Dyer. (2004). Resilience: a historical review of the construct. Holistic Nursing Practice, 18, 3-8 Warner R.B (2009), Seven principles of building resilience: practical ways of growing through adversity. People Dynamics. Warner, R.B (2009). Staying the course: Building personal resilience for successful organizational change. The Journal of Convergence, 5, 2, Warner, R.B.(2009). Coping with resilience in tough times. Management Today,

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