Understanding academic resilience over time through psychological resources and social support in the Yangtze River Delta region of China

Introduction Academic resilience is an important psychological resource that enables university students to cope with academic challenges and persist in demanding learning environments. Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory, this study examined the combined roles of social support, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and motivation in predicting academic resilience among university students in the Yangtze River Delta region of China. Methods A three-wave time-lagged design was employed, with data collected over three consecutive academic semesters from a final analytical sample of 2,609 undergraduate and postgraduate students from the provinces of Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Jiangsu. A three-wave time-lagged structural equation modelling approach was used to examine whether earlier social support and psychological resources were prospectively associated with later academic resilience, while controlling for age, gender, and education level. Results and discussion The results indicated that self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of academic resilience, followed by motivation and social support, all of which showed significant positive effects. Self-esteem also showed a positive association overall, although its effect varied across regions. Among the control variables, age and education level were significantly associated with academic resilience, whereas gender was not significant in the general model. Regional analyses further revealed meaningful variations in the strength and significance of the predictors across provinces. These findings highlight the importance of integrating psychological and environmental resources within a unified theoretical framework and underscore the role of contextual factors in shaping academic resilience. The study contributes to the academic resilience literature by providing evidence of prospective, time-lagged associations among key psychological and contextual factors and by offering practical implications for designing targeted interventions to strengthen students’ adaptive capacity in higher education.