This cross-sectional study investigated the relationships between the big five personality traits: (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extraversion) and psychological resilience among 397 Caribbean secondary school adolescents. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Stepwise Multiple Regressions were conducted to analyse the data. Results revealed statistically significant positive relationships between the personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience, extraversion) and psychological resilience, while neuroticism was negatively correlated with psychological resilience. The personality traits also jointly contributed 32% (R square = 0.324) of the variance being accounted for in psychological resilience and this was found to be statistically significant with conscientiousness being the best predictor while agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to experience were other significant predictors, however, extraversion did not contribute significantly. These results are discussed in the light of healthy personality beefing up and promoting adolescents' psychological resilience.

This cross-institutional study investigated the student-centred, home, school and society related causes of absenteeism among 1000 undergraduate students from two public universities, 500 each from The University of the West Indies, (UWI), Cave Hill Campus, Barbados and The University of Ibadan (UI), Oyo State, Nigeria. Results revealed that the students were absent from lectures for student-centred, home, school and society related reasons and there were significant differences between UWI and UI students' reasons with school causes being the key factors for absenteeism among the students from both institutions. Additionally, gender differences were found among the Nigerian undergraduates' student-centred and school causes of absenteeism while gender did not affect the causes of absenteeism among the undergraduates in Barbados. These results were discussed with the hope of understanding and tackling absenteeism among the students from the two different institutions.

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This study investigated emotional intelligence (attending to emotion, positive expressivity and negative expressivity) and gender as predictors of academic achievement among 163 undergraduate psychology students in The University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. Results revealed significant positive and negative correlations among academic achievement, emotional intelligence components and gender. Additionally, using the stepwise multiple regression analysis, it was found that emotional intelligence contributed 40% (Rsq= 0.396) to the variance in academic achievement while simple regression analysis revealed that gender also contributed 5% (Rsq =0.048) to academic achievement and these results were significant indicating that both emotional intelligence and gender predicted academic achievement but emotional intelligence was a better predictor of academic achievement than gender. The Independent t-test analysis also revealed gender disparity in academic achievement and attending to emotions in favour of girls. These findings were discussed in the paper.

This study investigated the relationships between some academic related variables (interest in school, psychological resilience, study habit) and attitudes toward substance abuse among 220 (M=15.1, SD=1.10) secondary school adolescents in Barbados. Results revealed that interest in school, psychological resilience and study habits negatively correlated with adolescents’ attitudes toward substance abuse. The academic related variables also jointly contributed 45% (R Square=0.445) of the variance being accounted for in attitudes to substance abuse and this was found to be statistically significant (F(3,216)=57.63, p<.0005). Additionally, it was found that interest in school was the best predictor of attitudes to substance abuse and that psychological resilience and study habit were other significant predictors. These results were discussed in the light of the importance of these academic variables preventing adolescents’ substance abuse