Effects of goal achievement motivation on K-12 students’ resilience in STEAM activities: the mediating role of in-school social supports

Students are required to be resilient when they encounter stress, academic difficulties, and even stereotypes during challenging STEAM activities. Thus, exploring supportive pathways to improve resilience is necessary. There is existing evidence that students' goal achievement motivation and in-school social supports are efficient individual and environmental factors to support students' resilience. However, few studies have discussed the triadic relations. To address this gap, based on the input-environment-outcome (I-E-O) model, the present study examined the relationships between students' goal achievement motivation and resilience, taking into account in-school social supports (i.e. teacher support and student support) as potential mediators. A valid sample of data collected from 281 K-12 school students was used to test the model. The results showed that goal achievement motivation and peer support were crucial factors in promoting resilience, but teacher support had no effect. Furthermore, goal achievement motivation is positively related to teacher support and peer support. Additionally, peer support has a partial mediating effect on the correlation between goal achievement motivation, but teacher support has no mediating role. These findings suggested that educators can improve students' resilience by activating their goal achievement motivation and enhancing supportive peer interaction during the process of STEAM activities.