Dispositional Mindfulness and University Adjustment: The Mediating Role of Coping Self-Efficacy

Academic and personal-emotional adjustment to university are important for students’ success. Dispositional mindfulness is known to be associated with academic and personal-emotional adjustment. However, less is known about the underlying mechanisms explaining this relationship. Coping self-efficacy has been found to be related to dispositional mindfulness, academic and personal-emotional adjustment to university. Therefore, this cross-sectional study sought to investigate a possible indirect effect of dispositional mindfulness on academic and personal-emotional adjustment through coping self-efficacy (emotion-focused and problem-focused). A sample of 65 second-year undergraduate students ( M age = 19.57, SD = .78; 77% women; 68% White) completed a series of measures. Problem-focused self-efficacy was found to be consistent with a partial mediation model whereby increase in dispositional mindfulness was associated with increase in academic and personal-emotional adjustment, partially through increases in problem-focused self-efficacy. Emotion-focused coping self-efficacy was consistent with a partial mediation model whereby increase in dispositional mindfulness was associated with increase in personal-emotional adjustment partially through emotion-focused coping self-efficacy, but was not consistent with a mediation model between dispositional mindfulness and academic adjustment. Findings have theoretical and clinical implications for student adjustment to university and retention.