The Relationship between Defensive pessimism, Goal Orientation and Self Esteem among Faculty Nursing Students

Abstract Background: The academic achievement of students is closely tied to their self-worth and ability to stay focused on their goals. Furthermore, students can use their cognitive abilities to pursue their goal direction and motivate themselves. They may set low expectations before entering a situation, not because they believe they will fail, but to prepare themselves for the possibility of failure. By doing so, they can motivate themselves to work harder and avoid anticipated failure, which is known as defensive pessimism. The study’s aims: Assess the levels of defensive pessimism, goal orientation, and self-esteem of nursing students at the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. Subjects: 400 students were included in research by stratified sampling method followed by simple randomization sampling technique to select 100 students from each academic year. Tools: The Defensive Pessimism Questionnaire, The Goal Orientation Scale, and Self-Esteem Scale were used. Results: 56.28% of participants had a low level of defensive pessimism, about two thirds (62.30%) of the participants had a low level of goal orientation, and 70.0% of the students had a mild level of self-esteem. Conclusion: It was observed that there is a significant and positive correlation between defensive pessimism and goal orientation while there was a negative significant correlation found with self-esteem. Implications: it is suggested that workshops be conducted for nursing students to educate them about defensive pessimism, goal orientation, and self-esteem. This will help the students to understand these concepts better and develop psycho-education program to improve their goal-setting abilities, self-esteem, and decrease use of defensive pessimism which may lead to better academic achievement.