ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1676887
Coping Behaviors of First-Generation College Students Across Family Structures
Provisionally accepted
- West Visayas State University, Iloilo City, Philippines
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This embedded mixed-methods study investigated the coping behaviors of 2, 236 first-generation college students in the province of Iloilo, Philippines, highlighting how these learners manage academic, emotional, and socio-economic stressors through various strategies. Quantitative analysis revealed a generally high level of coping, with cognitive reappraisal (M = 3.01, SD = 0.61), spiritual support, and relaxation as the most frequently employed strategies. Conversely, social support and self-expression were only moderately utilized, indicating a preference for internalized coping mechanisms. High coping levels were consistent across sex, birth order, and income levels. However, students from intact families reported higher usage of social support, reinforcing the role of family structure in coping. While there was no significant difference found in the coping behaviors among first-generation college students, a significant relationship was found for students from families experiencing disruption in terms of their birth order (ρ = -0.04, p = 0.19). Nine purposively-chosen first-generation students participated in the qualitative analysis that further deepened the findings, revealing six key themes: (1) Weight of Familial Expectations and Financial Strain, (2) Coping Through Spiritual Anchoring, (3) Cognitive and Emotional Self-Regulation, (4) Selective Use of Social Support, (5) Birth Order and Coping Responsibility, and (6) Navigating Academic Overload and Emotional Fatigue. These narratives reflected the multidimensional stress landscape experienced by first-generation students, emphasizing a strong reliance on spirituality, inner strength, and culturally-embedded values. Together, the quantitative and qualitative results point to the psychological resilience of these students and emphasize the need for inclusive, context-aware psychosocial programs in higher education institutions.
Keywords: family structures, coping behaviors, First generation, cognitive reappraisal, First-Generation College Students, psychological resilience
Received: 31 Jul 2025; Accepted: 06 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Siason. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Amabel Tangco Siason, atsiason@wvsu.edu.ph
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