The Resilience and Coping Strategies for Student-Athletes on Acculturation of the New Normal

Abstract

The concept of cultivating new norms has been introduced by the Government using the CAPP (Cegah - Prevent, Amal - Practice, Patuh - Compliance, and Pantau - Monitor) approach which targets individuals, families, and communities in preventing COVID-19 from further spreading. This acculturation or process of lifestyle change has indirectly educated each individual to adapt as quickly as possible. The cultivating of new norms throughout the Movement Control Order has resulted in restrictions on movement and made it difficult for individuals to adapt to these situations. This study aims to examine the level of resilience and coping strategies towards cultivating new norms during the COVID-19 pandemic among the Malaysian Sports School student-athletes. This study uses descriptive from quantitative method, which involved 275 respondents of student-athlete from Malaysian Sports Schools throughout the country. The study constructs focused on resilience, coping strategies and acculturation of the new norms based on the objectives of the study. The level of Cronbach’s Alpha reliability values ​​obtained for all questionnaires is high (α>0.95). Data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially using mean, standard deviation and percentage using SPSS version 26.0. The results of the study shows that the score is at a high mean score level, namely; resilience (M=3.82, SD=0.49) and coping strategies (M=4.15, SD=0.64) and acculturation of new norms (M=4.46, SD=0.55). The findings of this study can be used as a guide and basis for the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE), Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS), Ministry of Health of Malaysia (MOH) and Malaysian Sports School (SSM) to continue in empowering the student-athletes by building up their resiliency through programs and help them to easily cope with the new normal.