The United Nations has identified 17 priority development goals to address sustainability and improve the quality of education in the postpandemic era of COVID-19 (Ayuso, 2020). The development of academic resilience involves increasing the empowerment of students, who act as key participants in the learning process (León-Vázquez & Silva-Hernández, 2021). Academic resilience plays an important role in promoting students’ academic performance (Vidal-Meliá et al., 2022). Even in the face of difficulties, students who are academically resilient can successfully overcome study-related stress, maintain optimal levels of motivation, and achieve better performance than those who are not academically resilient (Martin & Marsh, 2006; Romano et al., 2019).

 

Furthermore, peer relationships have an important role in developing learning experiences during adolescence (Otake et al., 2006; Tu & Chu, 2020). Students who have experienced an interconnected classroom environment tend to seek support from peers who can moderate their negative events and perceptions (Hosek et al., 2016). In addition, university students with better peer relationships have greater learning motivation than do those with poorer peer relationships, and the impact of social relationships on students’ academic motivation is positively mediated by their place attachment to the university (M. Li et al., 2013).

 

Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) is a sociocultural motivation theory that asserts all people possess three universal psychological needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. If these three needs are satisfied, people are more motivated to act and experience greater psychological well-being (Chiu, 2022). Self-determination theory has been widely applied in school settings, where the satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs has a positive impact on students’ motivation to engage in learning (Hsu et al., 2019; Reeve, 2013; Wood, 2019). Students with high academic resilience are motivated to attain greater engagement in learning than are those with low academic resilience (Lindstrom Johnson et al., 2016). In addition, students’ motivation can be classified as either intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation involves a high degree of individual autonomy in learning, while extrinsic motivation involves external stimuli that motivate individuals to engage in various activities (Peng & Zhang, 2022). External motivation exists outside the learner and can be sourced from peer relationships and teacher support. It is important to note that the two kinds of motivation are interdependent and can each positively influence the learning process. To our knowledge, there has been little comprehensive research to analyze the relationships between academic resilience, peer relationships, learning motivation, and learning engagement in the higher education setting. Consequently, we investigated the relationship between academic resilience and learning engagement through the mediators of peer relationships and learning motivation (see Figure 1).

 

Students with high academic resilience can deal with problems and meet learning demands with a positive attitude (Romano et al., 2021). Studies have found that the academic adaptation of international postgraduates in China (W. Li et al., 2022) and Chinese migrant children (Z. Liu, 2023) positively predicts their learning engagement. The adaptability of students in China from all levels of education positively influences their learning engagement (Wu & Sun, 2021). Therefore, we formed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Academic resilience will positively predict learning engagement. 

Peer relationships refer to the processes and situations of peer-group interactions, conducted among individuals of similar age, with the same values and perceptions (Saelao et al., 2015), which influence students’ learning regardless of the educational field (Véronneau & Dishion, 2010). Students who are academically resilient tend to seek peer support to increase their learning engagement (Rouse et al., 2001). Additionally, resilience has been found to be positively correlated with children’s peer attachment (Tian et al., 2013), and to positively influence high school students’ subjective social status and class peer status (Chen et al., 2023). 

 

The preceding arguments suggest that academic resilience may impact students’ peer relationships and influence learning engagement through the indirect effect of peer relationships. Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Peer relationships will mediate the relationship between academic resilience and learning engagement.

Learning motivation is not only the need to seek self-directed learning objectives during the learning process, but also a psychological mechanism that encourages individuals to initiate learning actions (Shin & Kim, 2017). Learners with high academic resilience have high interest and satisfaction in learning and tend to make learning plans and accept responsibility for their actions (Shin & Kim, 2017). Students with high, compared to low, academic resilience are motivated to attain higher engagement in learning (Lindstrom Johnson et al., 2016) and tend to perform better academically and be more motivated (Rouse et al., 2001). Chinese college students’ academic resilience has been found to be positively correlated with their learning motivation (X. Liu, 2020; Ren, 2023). In addition, studies have found that students’ autonomous motivation positively predicts their online learning engagement (Jiang et al., 2023), and engineering students’ learning motivation in applied undergraduate universities positively predicts their learning engagement (Huai, 2024). Therefore, we formed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Learning motivation will mediate the relationship between academic resilience and learning engagement.

In attempting to prove their competence by outperforming their classmates and appearing more capable of learning, social interactions influence the motivation of academically resilient students (M. Li et al., 2013). High-quality interpersonal connections can also affect students’ motivation and engagement (Martin & Collie, 2016), along with their learning motivation (M. Li et al., 2013). A previous study has also shown that the relationships students experience in the classroom with their classmates can meet their psychological needs and inspire students’ learning motivation (Frisby et al., 2020). Therefore, we formed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Peer relationships and learning motivation will play a chain mediating role in the relationship between academic resilience and learning engagement.

This study received ethical approval from the appropriate committee at Sichuan Nursing Vocational College. We used random sampling to recruit participants from mid-September to mid-October, 2022. We distributed the online questionnaire through the Wenjuanxing platform, introducing the main content, research purpose, and precautions, and obtaining informed consent before participants began the questionnaire. Participants completed the survey online in their own time in a location of their choosing by using their cell phone or laptop. On completion, participants were compensated with RMB 50 (~USD 7).

Participants were enrolled at 10 large universities in eastern China. We obtained 710 valid online questionnaires (response rate = 94.7%). The sample comprised 361 (50.8%) men and 349 (49.2%) women with a mean age of 25.3 years (SD = 3.1, range = 21–32). Among the participants, 254 (35.8%) were majoring in humanities and social sciences, and 456 (64.2%) were majoring in science, agriculture, and medicine.

 

 

All items were adopted from existing scales and rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).

 

The four items assessing academic resilience were sourced from Cassidy (2016). A sample item is “I can learn from others the skills and experience to overcome learning difficulties.” Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .89.

 

The five items assessing peer relationship were sourced from Wei (1998). A sample item is “I feel very sad when my classmates are sick.” Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .81.

 

The three items assessing learning motivation were sourced from Lei (1997). A sample item is “I often start class with questions I need answered.” Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .83.

 

The six items assessing learning engagement were sourced from Fang (2008). A sample item is “When I study, I am strong and energetic.” Cronbach’s alpha in this study was .91.

We used SPSS 25.0 and Amos 23.0 to test for common method bias and analyze the proposed mediating effects. A confirmatory factor analysis showed acceptable model fit, χ²/df = 4.44 (< 5), root-mean-square error of approximation = .07 (< .10). The average variance extracted values for academic resilience, peer relationships, learning motivation, and learning engagement were .68, .47, .63, and .63, respectively, and the composite reliability of each variable was .90, .81, .86, and .91, respectively.

We used Harman’s single-factor test to investigate common method bias because we had collected self-reported data. This test extracted four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, with the first factor explaining 46.37% (< 50%) of the variance, indicating that common method bias had little impact on this study.

A correlation analysis showed there were significant positive correlations between any two of the study variables (p < .01). We examined the mediating effect by using a bootstrapping method with 5,000 resamples.

 

The total effect and direct effect of academic resilience on learning engagement were significant, indicating that peer relationships and learning motivation played a partial mediating role in this relationship, with an effect value of 0.62 and a relative mediating effect of 43.50%. None of the confidence intervals of the three indirect effects included zero, indicating that peer relationships and learning motivation significantly mediated the effect of academic resilience on learning engagement, both individually and consecutively (see Table 1).

In this study we investigated the effect of academic resilience on learning engagement. We found that academic resilience positively predicted learning engagement, which corresponds with previous research (W. Li et al., 2022; Z. Liu, 2023; Wu & Sun, 2021). We also found that academic resilience positively predicted learning engagement indirectly through the individual and chain mediators of peer relationships and learning motivation, corresponding with previous research (M. Li et al., 2013; Liew et al., 2018; Martin & Collie, 2016; Martin & Marsh, 2006; Romano et al., 2019). Therefore, all of our hypotheses were supported.

First, administrators of educational institutions should endeavor to improve students’ academic resilience, and students should learn to recognize and regulate their feelings. Second, administrators should hold regular meetings with students and set a good example of people who can share their experience. Third, universities should create a good campus atmosphere and improve students’ peer relationships and learning motivation.

This study has some limitations. First, the sample size was small. Second, the study was conducted using a cross-sectional research design, which does not allow for the determination of causal relationships between variables. Additionally, cultural limitations prevent wider generalization of the results to populations influenced by different cultures. Future studies could be carried out on a larger scale, utilizing a longitudinal research design.

 

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