Fear of failure, resilience, and hope, academic stress in Pakistani adolescents

This study examined the relationships among fear of failure, resilience, hope, and academic stress among Pakistani adolescents in an examination-oriented educational context. A cross-sectional correlational design was used. Data were collected through convenience sampling from 300 students (150 females, 150 males; aged 13-19 years, enrolled in Matric, Intermediate, and BS programmes). Participants completed the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory, the Brief Resilience Scale, the Adult Hope Scale, and a 30-item adaptation of the Academic Stress Scale. The four hypotheses were tested with Pearson correlations, linear regression, parallel mediation analysis (Hayes' PROCESS Model 4 with 5,000 bootstrap samples), and independent-samples t-tests. Fear of failure was significantly positively correlated with academic stress and significantly negatively correlated with both resilience and hope. Resilience and hope were both significantly negatively associated with academic stress. Fear of failure significantly predicted academic stress and accounted for 15.5% of its variance. Hope and resilience jointly and partially mediated the association between fear of failure and academic stress. Indirect routes proved that resilience was the more potent mediator. Females had higher scores on each of the 4 variables: fear of failure, academic stress, hope, and males had higher scores on resilience. The results highlight the fear of failure as a key cognitive risk factor in adolescent academic adjustment as well as hope and resilience as parallel protective factors. They have implications for school-based prevention in Pakistan.