Coping Beats Raw Brainpower: What Drives Grades for University Students in Southern Ethiopia

When Stress Management Outweighs Memory Tricks

Grades are often treated like a scoreboard of intelligence, but this study suggests something far more practical: how students handle stress may be just as important as how quickly they process information. In the Psychosocial and cognitive predictors of academic achievement among higher education students in Southern Ethiopia, a research paper conducted with undergraduate students, researchers asked a simple but powerful question: what predicts academic success in a low-resource university setting—mental skills like working memory and inhibitory control, or psychosocial factors like coping strategies and students’ experiences with their learning environment?

The study followed 30 undergraduates in Southern Ethiopia and measured their GPA alongside everyday psychological experiences: how they cope with stress, whether they show traits linked to ADHD, how much social media interferes with life, and how they feel about their learning environment. It also tested core cognitive abilities using tasks that require holding and updating information (a “two-back” task) and stopping impulsive responses (a “go/no-go” task). The big takeaway? While mental speed on the memory task did relate to better grades, coping strategies and gender were stronger overall predictors. That insight matters for universities everywhere—but especially in contexts where students juggle financial strain, family responsibilities, and limited campus resources. It suggests that building better stress-response skills may be a faster, fairer way to boost academic performance than chasing small gains in test-taking speed.

What the Data Says: Coping Style and Gender Lead the Pack

The numbers told a clear story. Male students in the sample had higher GPA than female students. That gender difference, while not explaining everything, was a consistent predictor of performance. In addition, students who responded faster on the two-back working memory task tended to have better grades—suggesting that quick, efficient information updating supports classroom learning, exam performance, and everyday academic tasks like notetaking and problem-solving.

But the most practical finding was about coping. Students who used more self-controlling coping—strategies like keeping emotions in check during stressful moments, pausing before reacting, or pacing oneself through challenging coursework—performed better academically. While this effect was modest in some statistical models, it still made a significant contribution to explaining differences in GPA. In plain terms: students who could self-regulate under pressure were more likely to convert study time into grades.

Other psychosocial measures did not show a strong connection to GPA in this sample. Reported ADHD symptoms, social media addiction, and students’ academic self-perception (how positively they felt about their learning environment) were not significantly linked to grades. That’s notable: feeling good about school or worrying about phone use didn’t track as closely with results as the ability to handle stress in the moment.

Overall, the study suggests that in this group, psychosocial factors—especially coping and gender—were stronger predictors of academic performance than the measured cognitive skills, even though working memory speed still mattered.

Beyond Brain Tasks: Why Context and Coping Drive Performance

These findings fit with a broader psychological picture: success in school is not just about how sharply your brain can process information; it’s about how well you handle stress when the pressure peaks. The result that self-controlling coping predicted GPA echoes decades of research on self-regulation and academic persistence—students who can tolerate frustration, delay gratification, and recover from setbacks tend to complete assignments, study more consistently, and stay engaged even when time and energy are tight.

At the same time, the role of working memory speed makes sense. Working memory is the mental workspace that helps students keep a professor’s explanation in mind while taking notes or solving a multistep problem. Faster reaction times on the two-back task point to more efficient updating and focus—skills that convert directly into academic routines like reading dense material or navigating timed exams. Still, this cognitive edge didn’t outweigh the broader psychosocial context.

Why might coping loom larger in Southern Ethiopia? Consider the realities many students face: patchy internet access, financial strain, shared living spaces, and family duties that crowd study time. In such conditions, the ability to steady one’s emotions, ration attention, and keep going when plans fall apart can be decisive. The null findings for social media addiction and ADHD symptoms may reflect the small sample size or the way these issues show up differently in low-resource settings. For instance, limited data access may naturally curb excessive social media use, and formal ADHD diagnosis and support pathways may be less common, affecting self-report patterns.

The gender difference—with men showing higher GPA—should prompt careful reflection, not quick conclusions. Prior research in some low-resource contexts links gender gaps to unequal time burdens, safety concerns, and cultural expectations that place additional non-academic work on female students. The present findings cannot prove why the gap exists, but they align with the idea that structural pressures shape performance. In short: cognitive capacity helps, but coping skills and context—including gendered demands—often determine who gets to use that capacity to its fullest.

From Lecture Hall to Life: Turning Coping into a Campus Advantage

What can educators, counselors, and students do with this? First, put coping skills at the center of academic support. Brief, low-cost interventions can make a meaningful difference:

– Teach “pause-and-plan” routines. Before starting a study session or exam, take 60 seconds to define the task, set a realistic time box, and outline two fallback steps if distractions arise. This trains self-control in real time.
– Normalize stress cycles. Short workshops can show students how stress spikes before tests and how breathing, micro-breaks, and positive self-talk lower emotional intensity without derailing performance.
– Add coping check-ins to advising. A two-question screen—“What threw you off last week?” and “How did you recover?”—encourages active reflection and builds personalized strategies.

Second, leverage the modest role of working memory by making learning lighter on “mental juggling.” Instructors can chunk lectures, use worked examples, and give brief retrieval practice so students don’t burn limited cognitive bandwidth holding too many steps at once. Peer-led study circles can also reduce load by turning complex tasks into shared problem-solving.

Third, address gendered barriers. Offer flexible office hours, secure study spaces, and predictable deadlines. Partner with local services to reduce safety or caregiving constraints that disproportionately affect women. Even small scheduling adjustments—like early-evening tutorials or recorded sessions—can remove hurdles without compromising standards.

Finally, build campus systems that protect time and attention: quiet zones during exam weeks, device-free study blocks, and integrated stress-management modules in first-year orientation. These are practical, scalable moves that align directly with the study’s message: to raise GPAs, invest in coping, not just content.

The Takeaway: Build Coping, Narrow Gaps

This study’s message is straightforward: in this sample of Ethiopian undergraduates, coping strategies and gender were stronger predictors of academic performance than standard cognitive tests, though faster working memory still helped. That doesn’t mean ability is irrelevant—it means ability is most powerful when paired with the skill to manage stress and persist. For universities in low-resource settings, the path to better grades may begin not with more drills or harder tests, but with teaching students how to steady themselves when it counts. As the Psychosocial and cognitive predictors of academic achievement among higher education students in Southern Ethiopia research paper suggests, the smartest intervention may be the simplest: build coping, and capacity will follow. The open question is how quickly campuses can redesign support so that every student—not just those with fewer obstacles—gets a fair shot at turning effort into achievement.

Data in this article is provided by PLOS.

Tagged Academic skills, ADHD, Cognition, Cognitive neuroscience, Cognitive psychology, Cognitive science, Communications, Developmental neuroscience, Emotions, Human learning, Learning, Learning and memory, Medical conditions, Memory, Mental health and psychiatry, Network analysis, Neurodevelopmental disorders, Neurology, Neuropsychiatric disorders, Neuroscience, Psychological stress, Reaction time, Social communication, Social media, Social networks, Sociology, Working memory