Linking teacher feedback and coping flexibility to academic resilience: The mediating role of feedback-seeking behavior

Academic resilience is increasingly recognized as a protective capacity that enables students to persist, adapt, and maintain academic functioning when setbacks occur. However, how external instructional resources and internal coping resources translate into academic resilience remains insufficiently understood, particularly regarding the role of students’ proactive agency. This study examined whether feedback-seeking behavior mediates the relationships between teacher feedback, coping flexibility, and academic resilience. Data were obtained from 1156 undergraduate students, and the hypothesized relationships were tested using PLS-SEM. The results showed that the direct effect of coping flexibility and feedback-seeking behavior on academic resilience was statistically significant. Feedback-seeking behavior fully mediated the relationship between teacher feedback and academic resilience and partially mediated the relationship between coping flexibility and academic resilience. Integrating high-quality feedback with opportunities that scaffold students’ feedback-seeking and use, while also strengthening coping flexibility, may help create learning environments that foster academic resilience through sustained agentic engagement.