Effects of goal achievement motivation on K-12 students’ resilience in STEAM activities: the mediating role of in-school social supports

Abstract

Students are required to be resilient when they encounter stress, academic difficulties, and even stereotypes during challenging STEAM activities. Thus, exploring supportive pathways to improve resilience is necessary. There is existing evidence that students’ goal achievement motivation and in-school social supports are efficient individual and environmental factors to support students’ resilience. However, few studies have discussed the triadic relations. To address this gap, based on the input-environment-outcome (I-E-O) model, the present study examined the relationships between students’ goal achievement motivation and resilience, taking into account in-school social supports (i.e. teacher support and student support) as potential mediators. A valid sample of data collected from 281 K-12 school students was used to test the model. The results showed that goal achievement motivation and peer support were crucial factors in promoting resilience, but teacher support had no effect. Furthermore, goal achievement motivation is positively related to teacher support and peer support. Additionally, peer support has a partial mediating effect on the correlation between goal achievement motivation, but teacher support has no mediating role. These findings suggested that educators can improve students’ resilience by activating their goal achievement motivation and enhancing supportive peer interaction during the process of STEAM activities.

Keywords:

• STEAM activity
• resilience
• goal achievement motivation
• in-school social supports

Credit author statement

Yuanmeng Zhan: Conceptualization, Data curation, Methodology, Investigation, Writing-original draft, Writing-reviewing and editing. Jon-Chao Hong: Investigation, Methodology, Writing-reviewing and editing. Li Zhao: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Methodology, Writing-original draft, Writing-reviewing and editing.

Ethics statement

This study was granted approval by the ethical committee of Nanjing Normal University (approval code: NNU202405001).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Universal Technology for Primary and Secondary Schools, The national Research Institute for Teaching Materials.

Notes on contributors

Yuanmeng Zhan

Yuanmeng Zhan is a master degree candidate at School of Educational Science, Nanjing Normal University (NNU). Zhan’s primary research interests include academic motivation and affection, STEAM education, and technology application in education.

Jon-Chao Hong

Jon-Chao Hong is a professor in the Department of Industrial Education at National Taiwan Normal University. Dr. Hong’s research expertises are human resources development, creativity development and innovational management, digital game-based learning, and applying new technology in technical education.

Li Zhao

Li Zhao is a professor in School of Education Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China. Dr. Zhao’s research expertises are academic motivation and affection, STEAM education, and technology application in education.