How positive psychological capital is associated with academic resilience: investigating the sequential mediating effects of academic and coping self-efficacy among undergraduates.

BACKGROUND

Undergraduate students frequently experience persistent academic pressure and uncertainty, making academic resilience a critical protective factor for mental health issues. Building on positive psychology, this study examined whether psychological capital (PsyCap) enhances academic resilience directly and indirectly through a sequential process involving academic self-efficacy and coping self-efficacy.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey design was used with undergraduate participants from a Chinese university. Validated scales were used to measure PsyCap, academic self-efficacy, coping self-efficacy and academic resilience. Correlation analyses and chain mediation modeling (bootstrapping) were conducted to test the direct, parallel, and sequential indirect effects while controlling for basic demographic variables.

RESULTS

Psychological capital was positively associated with academic resilience and efficacy. Mediation analysis showed that academic and coping self-efficacy significantly mediated the relationship between PsyCap and resilience. More importantly, a significant chain pathway was identified: PsyCap was positively associated with higher academic self-efficacy, which was positively related to coping self-efficacy, which, in turn, was associated with higher academic resilience. This highlights the theoretical significance of the sequential pathway, despite its modest quantitative contribution, particularly in terms of intervention sequencing.

CONCLUSION

Psychological capital functions as an upstream psychological resource that is structurally linked to academic resilience through independent and sequential efficacy mechanisms. Interventions that simultaneously cultivate PsyCap, domain-specific confidence in learning tasks, and confidence in handling stressors may produce stronger gains in undergraduate resilience and long-term academic adaptation.