Investigating the reciprocal relations between academic buoyancy and academic adversity: Evidence for the protective role of academic buoyancy in reducing academic adversity over time

What is the relationship between academic buoyancy and academic adversity? For example, does the experience of academic adversity help build students’ academic buoyancy in school—or, does academic buoyancy lead to decreases in subsequent academic adversity? This longitudinal study of 481 high school students (Years 7–12) investigated the relations between academic buoyancy and academic adversity. Harnessing a cross-lagged panel design spanning two consecutive academic years, we employed structural equation modeling to investigate the extent to which prior academic buoyancy predicted subsequent academic adversity and the extent to which prior academic adversity predicted subsequent academic buoyancy—beyond the effects of sociodemographics, prior achievement, and auto-regression. We found that prior academic buoyancy significantly predicted lower subsequent academic adversity, but prior academic adversity did not significantly predict higher subsequent academic buoyancy. Interestingly, however, there was a marginal interaction effect such that students who experienced academic adversity but who were also high in academic buoyancy were less likely to experience academic adversity one year later. We conclude that it is important to instill in students the capacity to effectively deal with academic adversity—that is, academic buoyancy. We also conclude that some experience of academic adversity can have positive effects but predominantly when accompanied by high levels of academic buoyancy. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.