Introduction

Students with disabilities face many challenges that cause distress to them and in turn cause

major setbacks during their time in university which could lead to disengagement and lack of

commitment by student (Howell, 2006). Research looking at engagement and commitment

can help to retain and integrate students in tertiary education as there is a lack of research

when it comes to disabled students in South Africa. During the course of this research project

commitment and engagement of disabled students are going to be looked at in relation to

positive psychology and psychological capital (PsyCap). One must note that although there

has been research in industry looking at PsyCap little has focused on other contexts including

the educational institutions. Therefore the purpose of the current research is to establish

whether a high level PsyCap has impact on student commitment and engagement, as knowing

this can allow institutions easily integrate students more without difficulty. The literature

review will look at research that revolves around PsyCap, institutional commitment and

student engagement so as to investigate what these concepts mean and what research has

been done in the past in relation to the constructs, as well as how they can improve disabled

students institutional commitment and student engagement through the paradigm of positive

psychology. Furthermore the literature review will look at how psychological capital,

institutional commitment and student engagement relate to each other.

Although there has been extensive research on institutional commitment, student engagement

and the impact it has on student retention, there is a need for research in higher education

institutions on disability as research in the disability field has been ignored by academics.

According to the council of higher education (2005) South Africa lacks research on disabled

people which has resulted in government and organisations not being able to construct, plan

and implement strategies for the disabled. Therefore in planning to study PsyCap in relation

to commitment and engagement the data obtained can help inspire more research to improve

policy programs and services to enhance the experiences of graduate students with

disabilities. The current study will look at a variety of disabilities that are prevalent among

the students of University of KwaZulu-Natal such as those that have learning disabilities,

physical disabilities, are partially blind, blind, paraplegic, partially deaf, chronic,

quadriplegic, other conditions such as epilepsy, accidents etc.

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Disability

Disability has been defined in a number of different ways over the years with the social and

medical models being the most dominant ways in which disability has been defined. The

medical model maintains that disability is an abnormality and sickness that is unwanted or

caused by unwanted circumstances to an individual (Pfeiffer, 2001). The social model

understands disability as that of which is caused by societal factors rather than individual

factors (Naidoo, 2007; Naidoo; 2010). However there has been a call for a shift in the way

disability is conceptualized which has led to the following conceptualizations of disability.

Therefore disability conceptualization should also take psychological experiences into

account (Naidoo, 2007). This then led to disability being defined as “the complex relationship

between the environment, body and psyche, which serves to exclude certain people from

becoming full participants in interpersonal, social, cultural, economic and political affairs ”

(Marks, 1999, p.612). This conceptualization puts a psychological distinction on disability

which emphasises the importance of taking the individuals subjective lived experiences into

account when theorizing disability.

Through the above definition came a positive psychology outlook on disability which is

known as the psychofortigenetic stance. According to the psychofortigenetic view, disability

through positive psychology is a case of nurturing what is perceived as best for the disabled

person rather than seeing disability as burden that a disabled person endures (Naidoo, 2006).

Therefore what the psychofortigenetic view is saying is that positive psychology research

should start looking at what an individual can do and not what limits them. It critiques the

medical and social model of disability for not taking into account subjective experiences

which are about hope, optimism, happiness, wellbeing and engagement amongst others

(Naidoo, 2006). In the following study disability as defined by the author will be understood

as an impairment that not only restricts disabled students structurally but also as a discourse

that imposes restrictions to students’ academic and social wellbeing.

Disability in The South African Context

Throughout the history of South Africa people with disabilities have been marginalized and

discriminated against (Howell, 2006). An example of this would be in the apartheid era when

a substantial proportion of scholars were left out of the education system of which the

majority was black. In Post-apartheid disabled students in higher education face issues like

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inequality, structural difficulties, academic difficulties and lack of assistive devices or

technical equipment (Howell, 2006). Disabled students are sometimes rejected in some

courses due to their impairment which is due to the dominant discourse around disability

which sees disability as an inability to do something (Howell, 2006). Lastly Howell (2006)

mentions the problem of lack of support within learner services which is in the form of

counselling, healthcare, accommodation and guidance. In South Africa there tends to be more

of a learner services approach than that of learner development which tends to be a problem

because leaner development is also just as important. It has been found that these barriers

make it hard for most disabled students to be committed and engaged in their academic and

social lives as they are emotionally taxing on students (Howell, 2006).

In South Africa various forms of legislation and educational policies have been passed in

order to deal with disability discrimination and limiting barriers that disabled people

encounter daily. Legislation such as Prohibitation of Unfair Discrimination, Education White

Paper 3, and Education White Paper 6 are created with the aim of including non-traditional

students in Higher Education. The Foundation of Tertiary Institutions of the Northern

Metropolis (2011) and The Council for Higher Education (2005) concluded that although all

these policies have been implemented not much has been done to maintain holistic inclusion

of the disabled and further research is needed in higher education.

Positive Psychology

Over the years psychology has focused on healing people and has been fixed on the use of the

disease model e.g. the medical model and the focus on pathology. Psychology has been

looking at curing what is wrong with a person instead of looking for what is good and

attempting to build on that. Therefore Seligman and Cszikszentmihalyi (2000) came up the

term positive psychology with the aim of changing how psychology is viewed and moving

away from examining negative states to examining that of positive states (Seligman &

Cszikszentmihalyi, 2000). Positive psychology focuses on those factors that make life worth

living such as hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, responsibility and

perseverance (Seligman & Cszikszentmihalyi, 2000).These positive factors highlight

everything that relates to the overall happiness of an individual. Furthermore Seligman, Parks

and Steem. (2004) identify three variables of happiness of which are pleasure (positive

emotions), meaning and engagement. There are many ways to increase positive emotion for

example through fostering forgiveness, building hope and being optimistic (Seligman et al,

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2004). The second is through the search of gratification which is when the individual fully

engages in the task and immerses themselves in whatever they are doing by using their

character strengths e.g. sense of humour, and appreciation of beauty or excellence (Seligman

et al, 2004). Seligman and Cszikszentmihalyi (2000) state that actions that lead to wellbeing

or happiness can also help document those aspects of the organisation that lead to increased

engagement, commitment and overall happiness of the individual. Since positive psychology

looks what is positive about a person and aims to build on it, positive psychology could also

shift the discourse surrounding disability from a disease or an inability to take part in

“normal” activities to looking at what is positive about that individual.

Psychological Capital

PsyCap is derived from positive psychology which started approximately a decade ago when

Seligman and Cszikszentmihalyi(2000) challenged the field to move away from what is not

right with people to what is right and best about people (Luthans, Luthans, and Luthans,

2004). PsyCap is therefore defined as “an individual’s positive psychological state of

development and is characterized by: (1) having confidence(self-efficacy) to take on and put

in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution

(optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when

necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by

problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain

success” (Luthans, Avolio, Avey, & Norman, 2007, p.3). Therefore according to Luthens et

al. (2004) confidence/efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience make up the PsyCap

operational definition. These four constructs have been found to provide a collaborative

effect and together have predicted performance and satisfaction better than any of them could

individually. The following paragraphs will summarize these four states as they apply and

contribute to positive PsyCap (Luthens et al, 2004).

Self-Efficacy/ Confidence:

Self-efficacy is the ability to believe in one’s ability to gain cognitive resources in order to

get a specific outcome or as having confidence in oneself to strive to gain a specific outcome

(Page & Donahue, 2004). Bandura, (1997) defined self-efficacy as one who possesses the

resources to organise and implement a course of action that will produce a desired result.

These beliefs are said to be predictors of a person’s behaviour when going through challenges

(Page & Donahue, 2004).

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Hope:

Hope is defined as “a positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived

sense of successful (a) agency (goal-oriented energy) and (b) pathways (planning to meet

goals)” (Luthens et al, 2006, Snyder et al, 1991). Hope is thus the occurrence of goals,

objectives and the ability to create a strategy to attain those goal and objectives (Page &

Donahue, 2004). According to Luthens et al. (2004) there is a substantial amount of evidence

on the positive impact hope has on an academics’ and athletes performance.

Optimism:

Optimism is an “explanatory style that attributes positive events to external, permanent,

pervasive causes, and negative events to internal, temporary, and situation specific ones”

(Luthans & Youseff, 2004, p.153). This definition is taken from viewing optimism as a

degree of permanence and pervasiveness. Permanence is a state in which optimists will view

negative events as temporary and positive events as permanent while pervasiveness is the

degree within which optimists will view a negative cause as directed to not all events and

pessimists will view a positive cause through the opposite light(Page & Donhue,

2004;Luthens et al, 2004). Optimism appears to be future focused, this means that optimists

are more likely to look forward to what the future holds despite current events. This makes an

optimist more likely to give high performance as they do not take negative feedback as badly

as pessimists (Page & Donahue, 2004).

Resilience:

Resilience is defined as the ability to bounce back from adversity (Luthens et al, 2004).

Profiles of resilient people have been recognised as having a staunch approach to reality,

often having strong beliefs that life is meaningful and lastly the unchanging will to improvise

and accept change (Luthens et al, 2004; Luthans &Youseff, 2004; Page & Donhue, 2004).

All four of these constructs share similarities and are interlinked with each other but are also

distinctively different (Page & Donahue, 2004). Self-efficacy and hope are similar to each

other in that they are both related to how an individual may attain a given goal, but are

different in that hope is future focused whereas self-efficacy is focused on attainment of

present and future goals (Page & Donahue, 2004). Similarly optimism and confidence are

also closely related, they are both linked to looking for a favourable outcome, and one should

5

also note that an optimistic person might be naturally confident. The difference comes in that

optimism is future focused and with self-efficacy one acts as the challenge arises. (Page &

Donahue, 2004).Resilience is closely related to hope and optimism with regard to the notion

of creating meaning for events. The difference comes in that resilience focuses on coping

with present challenges in order to build strength while hope and optimism are more future

focused (Page & Donahue, 2004).

Luthens et al. (2006) writes that PsyCap needs to extent to other organizations e.g.

educational institutions and cultural contexts. He also adds that PsyCap needs to be tested on

other samples against other constructs other than those seen in the organization for example

institutional commitment and student engagement. In the paper (PsyCap and Performance

Impact in Educational Organizations, n.d) it proposes that PsyCap research should extend

beyond the scope of business into the educational realm. One of the main reasons that PsyCap

should expand into the educational institutional setting is that studies using the constructs of

hope, optimism, resilience and self-efficacy have proven to be of great benefit to the

educational sphere individually. However they have not been studied in a synergistic form

like that seen in PsyCap studies (PsyCap and Performance Impact in Educational

Organizations, n.d). The current study aims to research PsyCap in the educational institution

and by doing that looking at hope, resilience, optimism and confidence in a synergistic form

rather than an a individualistic form.

In the study that was done by Zhong (2007) he discovered that PsyCap is positively related to

commitment. Research results showed that psychological capital had positive impacts on

employee's performance and organizational commitment. It also found that one of the ways

to develop organizational commitment was to invest, manage and nurture the employee’s

psychological capital (Zhong, 2007). However the current study will be focused on PsyCap

and institutional commitment which has not been looked at by other research that has to do

with PsyCap. This in turn leaves a gap that can be closed by generating new research on

psychological capital. In a study by Luthans et al. (2007) they point out that since PsyCap is a

fairly new concept, further research is needed to test findings in other contexts in order to

compare their findings.

6

Institutional Commitment

One of the first theorists to define institutional commitment was Tinto and Pascarella and

Terenzini who said institutional commitment is a person’s commitment to the institution in

which he or she has taken preference to attend (Pascarella & Terenzini 1980; Tinto, 1993).

Over the years many definitions of institutional commitment have been created and included

in those definitions “is students overall impression, satisfaction, sense of belonging, match

with, and attraction to a particular institution” (Strauss & Volkwein, 2004. p, 203). Therefore

Institutional Commitment can be simply defined as student satisfaction, sense of belonging

and the willingness to attend the institution again. This can be cultivated by how much an

individual is academically and socially integrated into the institution (Cabrera, Castaneda &

Nora, 1993; Strauss & Volkwein, 2004). It is therefore important to know students

institutional commitment because it helps with student retention and if an institution knows

how institutionally committed students are, policies can be created and implemented in order

to make students more likely to stay with the institution (Strauss &Volkwein, 2004). Various

studies have been conducted on institutional commitment but none have really ever targeted

disabled students which leaves a gap in literature that could be useful to institutions about

overall satisfaction of disabled students.

A study conducted by Morris (2002) who looked at student’s institutional commitment and

how it affected persistence in tertiary students (Morris, 2002). Findings concluded that

students who came from families that had higher income were more likely to persist that

those who did not, students who had listed the institution they were currently studying in as

their first choice were more likely to be committed institutionally than those who did not list

it as their first choice, the study also found that students who did extra-curricular activities

and developed social interactions were more likely to stay in college because they felt they

had built good relationships with peers encouraging them to stay in their institution of choice

(Morris, 2002). A limitation of the study above is its lack of generalisability since research

had not really been done in other Christian institutions but even through these limitations the

results were found reliable. Research on institutional commitment among disabled students is

currently lacking and since institutional commitment is a good predictor of staying in

university, it should be studied on disabled students too.

Similar research conducted by (Cabera et al, 1992; Cabera et al; 1993; Strauss & Volkwein,

2004) found that if students are socially and academically integrated in to the institution they

7

are likely to build commitment towards the institution and goal attainment. Therefore

knowing disabled students institutional commitment levels could help institutions understand

why students end up not completing their degrees or taking longer to complete their degrees.

This makes institutional commitment vital in understanding how committed students are in

tertiary as this will help to integrate disabled students into university. In a study conducted in

the UK they found that disabled students attributed their dropping out of university to health

problems, structural difficulties, and high workload rather to lack of commitment on their

part (York & Longden, 2008). Therefore concluding that more research needs to be done

looking at disabled students commitment levels and how they impact them staying in

university. The study also found that institutional commitment can lead to students being

more engaged in their academics (York & Longden, 2008).

Engagement

The term student engagement is used to refer to the extent to which students participate in

academic and non-academic activities (Audas & Wilims, 2001). Its definition is often tied to

a behavioural component, psychological component and cognitive component. The

behavioural component usually pertains to participation in school activities while the

psychological component usually pertains to student’s connection with the institution and

approval of institution values (Anderson et al, 2004; Appleton et al, 2005; Audas & Wilims,

2001; Finn & Rock, 1997; Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003). The psychological component

might include students feelings of belonging, their social ties and relationships formed with

educators, feeling safe in the institution and to what extent they value success (Audas &

Wilims, 2001). The cognitive component is paying attention to the educator whole heartedly

in class. This is near impossible to spot as the cognitive occurs in the students mind and

teachers cannot know what students are thinking (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003). Therefore

student engagement is said to be viewed as a psychological connection, comfort and feeling

of fitting in that students associate with their institution, friends, lectures, and administrators.

(London et al, 2007).

Studies have shown that with student engagement the challenge is creating an environment

that promotes student participation and engagement as it is necessary to increase deep

learning in students (Honey, Culp & Spielvogal, 1999). Engagement has also been found to

be useful in predicting academic success of students as “students with disabilities encounter

specific barriers that impede their academic and social engagement; however their needs are

8

often overlooked in comparison to other student populations” (Nichols & John, 2006: 39).

Determining engagement levels of disabled students will provide universities with the

framework to make sure that disabled students are more engaged by introducing mechanisms

to increase engagement. Engagement has been found to be highly useful in predicting

academic achievement with students that get high grade averages being more engaged than

others thus making those that are disengaged more likely to drop out of school, behave in a

disruptive nature and get low grades (Finn et al, 1997). This is why Kember (2009, p.5)

stresses that “meaningful learning is most likely to occur when students are actively engaged

with a variety of learning tasks.” However, minimal is known on engagement of disabled

students and this could be because research on retention amongst disabled students in higher

education is not available as there is a lack of empirical and reliable data on graduation rates

of disabled students and the few that is available is limited quantities of graduation rates

(Nichols & John, 2009). The following study aims to find out engagement levels of disabled

students in order to provide more empirical data concerning disabled students as this will help

higher educational institutions to keep disabled students engaged.

In spite of the findings stated above Zyngier, (2007) writes that even though theorists claim

that engagement is related to academic achievement this is sometimes not true when

researching on engagement. While researching on engagement Willms, (2003) found that

contextual factors, socio-economic factors were also responsible for high dropout rates and

not disengagement. Furthermore (Shernoff, Csikszentmihalyi, Schneider & Shernoff, 2003)

note that having a high level of engagement has been found to be an important predictor of

systematic motivation and commitment as well as overall performance in higher education.

In regards to engagement and PsyCap a study by Bakker and Schaufeli, (2008) found that

engagement plays a huge role in increasing organizational commitment and performance. The

study also found that high levels of engagement can constitute to people being highly

committed to their work and committed to the company itself (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008).

Employees with high sense of engagement have been found that they were highly devoted to

their work and started exceeding what was expected of them when it came to performance

(Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008). These findings are useful in the context of the workplace but

there are other engagements that PsyCap has not looked at and needs to start paying attention

to such as student engagement. Since PsyCap is a fairly new concept it needs to be broadened

out into other fields of study to see if it can yield the results that have been found when it

9

comes to PsyCap research (Luthans, 2004; Luthans, 2008). This study provides a platform to

test if PsyCap is as useful in the educational realm as research has found it to be useful in the

organisational field.

Disability studies in psychological capital, commitment and engagement

As highlighted above not that many studies have been done combining commitment,

engagement and disability especially in South Africa. A pilot study by Hammer, Wreth and

Dunn (2007) looked at the stigma’s attached to learners with disabilities and how it affected

disabled students functioning in higher education. The study wanted to know what impact

their disability had in study choice, university choice, workload, and success in previous

study environments (Hammer et al, 2007). It was concluded that stigmas attached to

disabilities hindered students commitment and engagement, in that students found it hard to

learn and keep up because of they felt emotionally overwhelmed to an extent that some chose

to stay at home and study long distance (Hammer, Wreth and Dunn, 2007). What is not clear

in this study is whether the type of disability affects engagement and commitment, meaning

do blind students appear to be less committed than students with chronic disability. What else

is not clear is whether the level of study affects engagement and commitment. This could

help establish which disabled students are more committed or engaged.

However commitment and engagement looking at disabled students has not been explored

using PsyCap as the antecedent as there is limited research focusing on disability in higher

education in South Africa and around the world. Looking at past research on commitment,

engagement and psychological capital one finds that even though they are mentioned

collectively in various pieces of research for example (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008; Luthans et

al. 2008) there is limited research that looks at the three constructs solely together. This

shows that there is a relationship between PsyCap, engagement and commitment but it just

has not been explored to the extent that this study aims to investigate it at.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework taken for this study will be that of Fredrickson’s (1998) broaden-

and-build model of positive emotions which will be used to elaborate how positive emotions

can add to understanding commitment and engagement. Fredrickson’s broaden and build is

taken from positive psychology which stipulates that positive emotions such as, joy, interest,

contentment, and possibly happiness, all share the ability to broaden and individual’s

10

momentary thought-action repertories and thus build up peoples personal capital such as

physical, physiological, intellectual and social resources (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001). In

addition, these positive emotions play a part in constructing an individual’s personal

resources, ranging from physical, psychological, intellectual and social. The ability to feel

positive is attributed to ones capability to flourish (Seligman and Cszikszentmihalyi, 2000),

mentally flourish and psychologically develop (Fredrickson, 2001; Fredrickson and Lesoda,

2005). The broaden-and-build theory states that the effects of positive affect accumulate over

time and can transform individuals for the better, making them healthier and more socially

integrated (Fredrickson and Lesoda, 2005).

The broaden-and-build theory and PsyCap all focus on positive emotions and are viewed

through a positive psychology perspective whether it be love, joy, commitment engagement

etc (Fredrickson, 2001). Organisational research on positive emotions has been found to

correlate with engagement and commitment through fostering positive emotions (Reschley et

al, 2006). This theory is applicable to this study because it acknowledges that positive

emotions can serve as predictors of commitment and engagement as there is evidence that

there is a link in research that has been conducted in the organization on work commitment

and work engagement Luthans et al, (2009). While emotions studied under the broaden and

build theory are different from the positive cognitions observed in PsyCap, studies have

found a strong link between cognitions and emotions (Luthens et al, 2008). Furthermore

positive emotions have been found to promote a person’s commitment. (Lord & Kanfer,

2005). This means that if one fosters positive emotions in people they will be more

committed and if one experiences negative emotions they are more likely to be less

committed. Little is really known about the broaden and build theory as:

The study will look at how commitment and engagement is enhanced, through positive

emotions by studying the PsyCap of disabled students in higher education. According to

Reschley et al, (2008) the broaden and build perspective gives a noticeably useful framework

to research on the complicated play of contextual and individual difference variables as they

correlate to student engagement levels.

Conclusion

In conclusion the literature review has provided a theoretical framework which identified

studies, authors and sources that have written about disability in higher education around the

11

world as there is lack of research coming from South Africa in relation to commitment and

engagement. It further highlighted the key concepts around which the study is located, being

student commitment, engagement and PsyCap while it looking at all these concepts from a

positive psychology perspective. Furthermore one notices that there is a lack of research

regarding disability in higher education especially concerned with commitment and

engagement although there is a lot of research that has been done there is a huge gap

concerning disabled students. There is also lack of research in relation to different types of

disabilities have bearing on commitment and engagement or not. PsyCap is also an under

researched field in South Africa and in educational institutions that could yield useful

information about how people function and cope in higher education as it is a new field of

study that has yielded vast amounts of information in the business front with the capability of

doing the same in the educational front. This could help in making and implementation of

policies which could make disabled students university experiences more pleasant.

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