Introduction: Embarking on university-level studies is a period of new challenges for young people as they meet new academic demands, environments, and teaching systems. Academic resilience, defined as students’ capacity to endure challenges while sustaining optimism, positive thinking, and emotional stability, is crucial in enabling individuals to navigate academic difficulties and foster future success. In this context, developing the role of contextual and personal factors in university students’ academic resilience and its role in predicting positive psychological outcomes is crucial. This study, grounded in the Study Demands–Resources framework, sought to examine study-related characteristics and self-efficacy as resources that support students’ academic resilience. Additionally, it aimed to explore the connections between academic resilience and positive psychological outcomes, such as student engagement and well-being.Method: The convenience study sample included 350 students from Lithuanian universities: 79.14% were female, the mean age was 23.8 years (SD = 5.7). Students were in varying bachelor’s and master’s study programs. Data were collected using a self-administered online survey. Descriptive statistics, correlation, regression analyses, and structural equation modelling were applied for data analysis.Results and conclusion: The study found that students’ academic resilience was positively influenced by the characteristics of their study environment and self-efficacy. Furthermore, academic resilience was positively associated with student engagement and well-being. Our findings highlight the role of academic resilience in mediating the interplay between study-related resources, student engagement, and well-being. This research study features practical implications for enhancing university students’ academic resilience, engagement, and well-being by strengthening both study-related and personal resources.
Employee resilience is commonly understood as a process that protects against distressing conditions and helps employees to cope with stress factors, to survive and adapt to changing work environments. Over the past few years Lithuanian teachers have had to deal with unexpectedforce majeuresituations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, a large influx of Ukrainian refugee pupils, ongoing school related issues, such as the introduction of new curricula, full inclusion of children with special needs, reorganizations, and increasing workloads. Our study based on the four-dimensional Teacher Resilience Framework and Job Demands-Resources theory aimed to examine relationships between supportive leadership, job resources and teacher resilience, and to reveal the mediating role of job resources in the relationships between supportive leadership and teacher resilience. A cross-sectional research sample included 455 Lithuanian teachers working in elementary and secondary schools. Data were collected using a self-administered online survey. The study identified that supportive leadership and job resources, i.e., feedback, autonomy, opportunities for development, and social support – were positively related with teacher resilience and its four dimensions. The mediation analysis established an indirect impact of supportive leadership on resilience typesviajob resources, however, the role of work resources as mediators differed depending on resilience type. The results complement studies analyzing the role of work environments in resilience, such as personal capability studies. They suggest that supportive school leadership and job characteristics as contextual resources available at the workplace should be considered when planning and implementing interventions aimed at strengthening teacher resilience.
The continuing attention of scholars and practitioners to the teaching profession, teachers and teaching is based above all on the fact that societal progress is impossible without an effective education system. Teachers are the “soft” dynamic, and at the same time, a driving force in this constantly changing system, and research into the prerequisites for their effective performance requires constant attention. In this study, the main phenomenon under analysis is the emotional resilience of teachers–the internal capacity to adapt, manage or cope with emotionally demanding situations. The purpose was to investigate work-related and personal resources that contribute to teachers’ emotional resilience and its role in the links between resources, teacher well-being, and the intention to leave. Data were collected using convenience sampling and included 522 teachers working in Lithuanian primary and secondary schools. An online self-administered questionnaire consisted of scales that assessed teachers’ job resources, self-efficacy, well-being, and intention to leave. The research revealed that perceived workplace characteristics – performance feedback, autonomy, social support, and opportunities for professional growth–along with self-efficacy were positively related and predicted teacher emotional resilience. Emotional resilience was found to be a direct positive predictor of teacher well-being along with job resources and self-efficacy and have a mediating effect on the relationships between work-related resources and self-efficacy as independent variables and teacher wellbeing as a dependent variable. Contrary to well-being is teachers’ intention to leave a school, which is usually an undesirable outcome for an organization. The study revealed that this intention is negatively affected by job resources and self-efficacy, however emotional resilience did not impact teachers’ intention to quit. Based on the results, the article outlines avenues for further research and provides implications for strengthening teachers’ emotional resilience.
This research aims to explore an analytical model, gauge the interplay between psychological resilience and achieved military competencies, and examine an intermediary role of effort, proactivity, and self-efficacy. In this study, 337 reserve soldiers from Lithuania were investigated with the Lithuanian Military Training Competences Assessment Scale, Resilience Scale, Self-Efficacy Scale, Short Grit Scale (Grit-S), and Proactivity Scale. Our findings highlighted the importance of the psychological resilience of reserve soldiers due to its positive relationship with the personality traits. Implicit interconnectedness between psychological resilience and psychological skills together with military competences was researched, and it became evident that self-efficacy determined a statistically important mediating role (indirect effect = 0.264 **, p < 0.05) between reservists’ psychological resilience and perceived military training course results. However, the other components included in the study did not have a mediating effect (effort indirect effect = 0.03, p > 0.1; proactivity indirect effect = 0.094, p > 0.1). The research findings are important because of greater prominence of the role of reserve troops in military operations around the world and achievements in the domain of security and defense. This study has great theoretical and empirical value in making decisions concerning the psychological resilience of reserve soldiers’ promotion and sustainable improvement of military preparedness strategies.
Proactive employees are an important part of social capital in modern organizations that operate in a competitive and ever-changing business environment. Proactive behavior (PB) is defined as self-directed and future-oriented actions that are aimed to change the situation, work environment, or oneself (Bindl & Parker, 2010). Proactive workers initiate individual and organizational changes, and they not only respond to work requirements or adapt to environmental conditions (Fritz & Sonnentag, 2009). Therefore, it is important to analyze the work and personal characteristics that may be significant in order to enhance the employees’ PB. The paper presents an empirical study that integrates the theoretical approaches of Proactive Behavior (Parker & Collins, 2010) and Job Demands – Resources (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). It is aimed, first, to examine the links between job demands (pace and amount of work, emotional and mental workload), resources (autonomy and feedback), and work engagement and stress with employee strategic proactive behaviors as well as work and person-environment fit proactive behaviors. Second, to determine the role that work engagement and stress have in the relationships between job characteristics and PB types. A total of 386 employees from various Lithuanian organizations were surveyed online. Sixty one percent of the respondents were female; the average age of the respondents was 34.8 (SD = 11.32) years, with an average of 7.3 (SD = 8.22) years of working experience in their organizations. Twenty one percent of the respondents were first-level managers. Most of the respondents (93.6%) had acquired higher education. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that strategic PB, through engagement as a mediator, was predicted by autonomy, mental workload, and feedback; proactive work behavior was predicted by emotional workload, while mental workload, autonomy, and feedback were related to proactive work behavior through work engagement as a mediator; proactive person-environment fit behavior was predicted only by feedback via work engagement as a mediator. The study has shown that employee PB can be reinforced not only with job resources (autonomy and feedback) but job demands as well (the mental and emotional workload) via the mediative effect of work engagement. Work stress was not related with PB. The practical applications of research findings are discussed.
Darbuotojų psichologinis įgalinimas – vidinė darbuotojo būsena, apimanti meistriškumo ir motyvacinės energijos patyrimą, – siejamas su teigiamomis darbuotojų nuostatomis, darbiniu elgesiu ir darbo rezultatais. Jis svarbus šiuolaikinėse organizacijose, ypač taikant lanksčias personalo valdymo sistemas, pabrėžiančias darbuotojų proaktyvumą ir įsitraukimą į darbą. Lietuviškojo psichologinio įgalinimo klausimyno pirmąją penkiolikos teiginių versiją sudaro penkios dimensijos (Tvarijonavičius ir Bagdžiūnienė, 2013), tačiau tyrimai rodo, kad teiginių pasiskirstymas ne visuomet atitinka penkių faktorių struktūrą. Tai paskatino atlikti papildomus metodo tikslinimo tyrimus. Straipsnyje pristatomų dviejų tyrimų pagrindinis tikslas – pakartotinai išnagrinėti lietuviškąjį darbuotojų psichologinio įgalinimo tyrimo metodą. Pirmajame tyrime, kuriame dalyvavo 740 įvairių organizacijų darbuotojų, parengtas patikslintas devynių teiginių klausimynas (PĮKL-9), kurį sudaro prasmės, sprendimų priėmimo ir pasitikėjimo kompetencija dimensijos, pagrįsti konstrukto validumas ir vidinis suderintumas. Antrajame tyrime, kuriame dalyvavo 658 darbuotojai, papildomai buvo tikrinamas metodo validumas. Abiejuose tyrimuose duomenys buvo renkami anketinės apklausos būdu. Rezultatai parodė, kad patikslintas darbuotojų psichologinio įgalinimo klausimynas pasižymi geromis psichometrinėmis savybėmis, gali būti naudojamas moksliniuose tyrimuose ir vertinant darbuotojų psichologinį įgalinimą konkrečiose organizacijose.