Review Of ReseaRch impact factOR : 5.2331(Uif) UGc appROved JOURnal nO. 48514 issn: 2249-894X vOlUme - 7 | issUe - 8 | may - 2018 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ Available online at www.lbp.world 1 EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF ACADEMIC RESILIENCE SCALE FOR PRE- SERVICE TEACHERS Ms. Megha D’souza 1 and Dr. Shefali Pandya 2 1 Assistant Professor , Smt. Kapila Khandvala College of Education , Santacruz, Mumbai. 2 Professor , Department of Education , University of Mumbai. ABSTRACT The excessive emphasis on academic achievement on Indian school students puts them at risk of feeling worthlessness and insecurity. Students falling prey to this kind of pressure often go through psychological problems like stress, anxiety and depression. It is thus important to empower students to face setbacks and adversities in life.School students are largely influenced by their teachers. Teachers being role model for their students should be resilient in order that their students can be resilient individuals. Thus it is important to study the academic resilience of future teachers (pre- service teachers). The purpose of the present study was to develop reliable and valid likert type scale to measure academic resilience of pre- service teachers. Intensive review of literature related to academic resilience helped in developing the tool and deciding its dimensions. The content validity of the scale was sought by consulting various experts in the field of education. Based on the recommendations of experts a scale comprising of 56 items was developed. After finding discrimination index, a final draft of academic resilience scale with 43 items emerged. Further in order to determine construct validity of the scale, exploratory factor analysis was performed. In this way, a two factor construct of 32 items explaining 28.466 % variance was obtained.The internal consistency reliability of the scale was found to be 0.91. Hence the present study shows that the academic resilience scale is a valid and reliable tool to study the academic resilience of pre-service teachers. KEY WORDS: Academic Resilience, Pre-service Teachers, Factor Analysis. INTRODUCTION Educated individuals are expected to collectively lead to social and national development. Thus, in India increasing importance is given to education. But the big question remains whether majority of schools in India strive to achieve the goal of providing education for all around development of students.’ In India, schools predominantly focus on facilitating academic achievement of students. The fact that in India there are many students committing suicide after the declaration of results emphasises education that focuses on test scores. The focus upon academic achievement is so intense that a student who is unable to do well in academics starts feeling worthless and insecure. As a result, the cases of depression and stress among young children are on rise. Some students manage to face the challenges and overcome them but many are weak in facing the pressure, stress, poor performance and setbacks in the academic setting. Students who face the challenges are termed as academically resilient students. The number of students overpowered by academic adversities is on rise. Thus, there is a need to study the academic resilience of students. It is thus important to teach children to face failure, setbacks and adversities. That means it is required that the students develop into resilient individuals. One person who can have a strong and long lasting influence on school students is a teacher. The present as well as future teachers have an important role to play in developing students as resilient individuals.