Adaptability and buoyancy: investigating their unique associations with students’ wellbeing and academic achievement

Adaptability (the capacity to respond to uncertainty, change, and novelty) and buoyancy (the ability to respond to everyday and low-level adversity) have emerged as personal attributes that appear to play an important role in students’ adaptive responses in an academic setting. However, the extent to which these capacities are associated with students’ emotional exhaustion and positive affect, and the potential process through which these indicators are associated with academic achievement has been comparatively underexplored. Accordingly, the present study sought to examine the associations between adaptability and buoyancy (personal resources), emotional exhaustion and positive affect and academic achievement in a sample of 414 Australian secondary school students. Exploratory structural equation modelling revealed that that adaptability and buoyancy were significantly associated with the emotional exhaustion and positive affect in unique and distinct ways. Taken together, the results highlight the non-intersecting function of adaptability and buoyancy in students’ emotional exhaustion and positive affect and the distinct links between these factors and academic achievement.