Personal Resource Gains: Effective Coping Builds Academic Buoyancy, and Academic Buoyancy Builds Achievement

Putwain, D ORCID: 0000-0001-5196-4270 and Nicholson, L ORCID: 0000-0001-9255-9650 (2026) Personal Resource Gains: Effective Coping Builds Academic Buoyancy, and Academic Buoyancy Builds Achievement. British Journal of Educational Psychology. ISSN 0007-0998

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Abstract

Background. Academic buoyancy is conceptualised as students' capacity to cope with academic challenges. Studies that examine how academic buoyancy and coping responses are reciprocally related, or that include relations with achievement, are lacking.

Aims. The study examined reciprocal relations among academic buoyancy, coping, and achievement.
Sample. The sample comprised students aged 16 to 19 years in upper secondary education. At the first wave of data collection, there were 533 students (138 male, mean age = 16.4 years).
Methods. Data were collected in five waves over two school years. Achievement was collected in waves one, three, and five. Academic buoyancy and coping were measured in waves two and four via self-report questionnaires.

Results. Data were analysed in a structural equation model. Adaptive coping positively, and non-adaptive coping negatively, predicted subsequent academic buoyancy. Additionally, academic buoyancy predicted subsequent achievement. A positive indirect relation from adaptive coping to subsequent achievement was mediated by adaptive coping.

Conclusions. The findings show that personal resources can operate in cycles of resource gain as “co-travellers”; effective coping can build academic buoyancy, and academic buoyancy can lead to better achievement. Moreover, study support for students could include ways to develop effective coping responses.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1303 Specialist Studies in Education; 1701 Psychology; Education; 3904 Specialist studies in education; 5201 Applied and developmental psychology
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Divisions:	Education
Publisher:	Wiley
Date of acceptance:	24 February 2026
Date of first compliant Open Access:	23 March 2026
Date Deposited:	24 Feb 2026 16:29
Last Modified:	23 Mar 2026 16:29
DOI or ID number:	10.1111/bjep.70074
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28141

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