ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1605550
Perceived Academic Support and Academic Achievement among Ethiopian First-year University Students: The Serial Mediating Roles of Academic Motivation and Resilience Author's information
Provisionally accepted
- Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
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This study investigates the mediating roles of academic motivation and resilience in the relationship between perceived academic support and academic achievement among Ethiopian firstyear university students, addressing a gap in understanding how these protective factors enhance academic achievement during a critical transitional period.A correlational design was employed, collecting data from first-year students at Injibara University. Instruments included the Perceived Academic Support Scale (Gutiérrez et al., validated by Reyes et al.), a revised 20-item Academic Resilience Scale (Cassidy, adapted by Cui, Wang, & Xu for collectivist contexts), and the Multidimensional Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., adapted by Orsini for university settings). Participants were selected via stratified random sampling, stratified by gender and college affiliation. Data collection occurred in two phases: a pilot study (n = 200; 158 male, 42 female) validated the instruments, followed by the main study (n = 503; 403 male, 100 female).: Pearson correlations revealed significant positive associations among perceived academic support, academic motivation, academic resilience, and academic achievement (p < 0.05). Analysis from the structural equation modeling confirmed that academic motivation and resilience fully mediated the relationship between perceived academic support and academic achievement, with robust model fit indices. Discussion: These findings highlight the critical roles of motivation and resilience as mechanisms linking support to achievement, offering practical implications for educators to bolster student success in the first year. Limitations include the study's focus on a cross-sectional design and a single institution. Future research should explore longitudinal designs and diverse cultural contexts to enhance generalizability.
Keywords: Academic Achievement, academic motivation, Academic resilience, Perceived Academic Support, serial mediation model
Received: 03 Apr 2025; Accepted: 23 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Melaku, Negasi and Tolla. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Biniyam Melaku, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
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