ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicPsychological Factors in Physical Education and Sport - Volume VIView all 42 articles
TRUST YOURSELF, DISCOVER YOUR RESILIENCE! FROM SELF-EFFICACY TO LIFE SATISFACTION: THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESILIENCE
Provisionally accepted
- 1Erzurum Teknik Universitesi, Erzurum, Türkiye
- 2Atatürk Üniversitesi, Erzurum, Türkiye
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study examines the mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship between self-efficacy and life satisfaction among student athletes studying at sport sciences faculties. A total of 481 student athletes (223 male, 46.4%; 258 female, 53.6%) studying at sport sciences faculties of different universities in Turkey participated in the study, which was conducted based on a quantitative research design. Data were collected using the General Self-Efficacy Scale, the Brief Resilience Scale, and the Life Satisfaction Scale. Analyses were conducted using SPSS 27.0 and PROCESS Macro (Model 4). First, the relationships between the variables were examined using Pearson correlation analysis, and then, mediation analyses based on the hierarchical regression and bootstrap methods were conducted. The findings revealed that self-efficacy significantly and positively predicted psychological resilience (β = .517, p <.001). Additionally, both self-efficacy (β = .278, p <.01) and psychological resilience (β = .141, p <.01) were found to be significant predictors of life satisfaction. Mediation analysis showed that psychological resilience partially mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and life satisfaction (β = .073, 95% CI [.024, .126]). The fit indices of the measurement model (χ²/df = 2.661; RMSEA = 0.059; CFI = 0.943; TLI = 0.932) were found to be at acceptable levels. These results reveal that self-efficacy and psychological resilience are critical psychological resources that support life satisfaction in university student athletes. The research emphasizes that sport environments can increase life satisfaction by strengthening physical and psychological resources. In line with the findings, it is evaluated that designing intervention programs to improve student athletes' self-efficacy and psychological resilience can significantly contribute to increasing life satisfaction.
Keywords: self-efficacy, psychological resilience, life satisfaction, Sport, Student athletes
Received: 02 Sep 2025; Accepted: 27 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Karababa, AYDIN, Yılmaz, Akkuş, Bayram and Aydın. 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: GÖKÇER AYDIN, gokceraydin00@gmail.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.