Enhancing university students’ academic self-efficacy: the roles of leisure experience, nostalgia, and positive emotions

ABSTRACTAlthough leisure participation has been recognized as an essential life domain that contributes to university students’ lives and education, only a paucity of research has focused on the effects of past leisure experiences on education among university students. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to explore the role of post-leisure experiences and their impact on education among university students. Specifically, the relationships among memorable leisure experience, nostalgia, positive emotions, and academic self-efficacy were examined. Results of a survey administered to 389 students at a university in Singapore revealed that memorable leisure experience had positive effects on nostalgia and positive emotions towards leisure activities. Furthermore, nostalgia had a positive influence on positive emotions towards favourite leisure activities, which affected university students’ academic self-efficacy. The findings showed that memorable leisure experience played significant roles in influencing university students’ academic self-efficacy. The findings provide empirical support to the existing body of research on nostalgia.KEYWORDS: Memorable experiencenostalgiapositive emotionsacademic self-efficacyuniversity students Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Ethical approvalAll procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee.Informed consentInformed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.Data availability statementThe datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the first author on reasonable request.Additional informationFundingThis study was funded by Nanyang Technological University (PG 08/19 CHT), and supported by Sungkyunkwan University and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (2023).Notes on contributorsHeetae ChoDr. Heetae Cho is an Associate Professor of Sport Science at Sungkyunkwan University. The primary focus of his research is to understand sport participants’ and coaches’ well-being and decision-making, and a large part of his research is related to the concept of sport nostalgia.Ye Hoon LeeDr. Ye Hoon Lee holds the position of Associate Professor within the Global Sport Industry department at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. His area of expertise lies in the realm of organizational behavior, particularly within the dynamic world of sports. Dr. Lee's primary research interests revolve around emotions, well-being, and leadership behaviors in the domains of sports and physical activity.