Understanding influential factors for the academic performance of doctoral students is crucial for supporting their exploration of academic research opportunities and aiding their pursuit of careers in academic research. This study surveyed 659 doctoral students in China, utilizing scales to assess academic motivation, buoyancy, self-efficacy, self-concept, and performance. Based on a partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis, a direct correlation between self-concept and performance was identified. Moreover, motivation, buoyancy, and self-efficacy were significant mediators in the relationship between self-concept and performance. To significantly enhance self-concept's impact on doctoral students' academic performance, educators should endeavor to enhance students' motivation, buoyancy, and self-efficacy. This endeavor will contribute to the discourse on academic performance and its underlying psychological mechanisms.

Problem-solving skills are a core competency for engineering students, yet the psychological mechanisms underlying their development remain poorly understood. Creative self-efficacy has been identified as a potential motivational driver of problem-solving skills, but the pathways through which it functions have received limited empirical investigation. This study examines the direct relationship between creative self-efficacy and problem-solving skills and explores the dual mediating roles of critical thinking and metacognition in this relationship. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a sample of undergraduate engineering students (N = 711). Validated self-report scales were used to assess creative self-efficacy, critical thinking, metacognition, and problem-solving skills. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the proposed dual mediation model. Creative self-efficacy was found to have a statistically significant direct effect on problem-solving skills (p < 0.01), although the effect size was weak (f² = 0.031). In contrast, creative self-efficacy had strong effects on both critical thinking (p < 0.001, f² = 0.690) and metacognition (p < 0.001, f² = 0.676). Both critical thinking (p < 0.01) and metacognition (p < 0.001) significantly mediated the relationship between creative self-efficacy and problem-solving skills, though their direct effects on problem-solving were modest (f² = 0.035 and f² = 0.129, respectively). The findings demonstrate that creative self-efficacy primarily enhances problem-solving skills through its positive effects on critical thinking and metacognition. These results highlight the need for engineering education to strengthen students’ critical thinking and metacognition while fostering their confidence in their problem-solving. These insights offer both theoretical and practical guidance for designing targeted interventions to enhance students’ problem-solving skills.

This study investigates the impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on engineering students’ creativity, examining the mediating roles of critical thinking and AI self-efficacy in this relationship. We analyze the data collected using SPSS (v.24) and SmartPLS (v.4) to assess the variables’ structural relationships and effect sizes. The results demonstrate that GenAI usage competence significantly enhances engineering students’ creativity (t > 1.96, p < 0.05,f² = 0.012). Furthermore, critical thinking partially mediates the relationships between GenAI usage competence and AI self-efficacy, as well as between GenAI usage competence and creativity (t > 1.96, p < 0.001). AI self-efficacy is also a partial mediator in the relationships between critical thinking and creativity, and between GenAI usage competence and creativity (t > 1.96, p < 0.05). This study identifies a chain mediation model in which critical thinking and AI self-efficacy sequentially mediate the relationship between GenAI usage competence and student creativity (t > 1.96, p < 0.001). These findings highlight the interplay between technological tools, cognitive abilities, and psychological factors, indicating that simply teaching technical skills is not enough. For engineering education, this implies that integrating GenAI tools into the curriculum must go hand in hand with fostering students’ critical thinking and AI self-efficacy to truly enhance creativity.

Background: The multifaceted challenges encountered by engineering university students generate paradoxical tensions, which serve as catalysts for fostering creativity. Engaging in paradoxical thinking during academic pursuits enhances students’ ability to solve complex engineering problems. Despite this, the intricate interconnections among paradoxical tensions, paradoxical thinking, and the creativity of engineering university students remain ambiguous. Methods: This study aimed to explore the gap by surveying 1,410 engineering students in China, examining how paradoxical thinking mediates the relationship between paradoxical tensions and creativity. Additionally, it investigated the moderating impact of team psychological capital on the associations between paradoxical tensions and both paradoxical thinking and creativity. SPSS 24.0 was initially used to convert the cleaned data into a “.csv” format, and Smart PLS (v.4.0.9.5) was then employed to assess the model. Results: The findings reveal a positive influence of paradoxical tensions on creativity and thinking. Notably, paradoxical thinking emerges as a significant contributor to enhancing the creativity of engineering university students. Furthermore, the findings show that paradoxical tensions enhance creativity by influencing paradoxical thinking. While team psychological capital emerged as a significant factor in moderating the link between paradoxical tension and creativity, its role in moderating the association between paradoxical tension and paradoxical thinking was not statistically significant. Conclusions: This study revealed how paradoxical tensions among engineering university students influence creativity through paradoxical thinking moderated by team psychological capital. The findings provide new insights for researchers to understand paradoxical tensions, paradoxical thinking, team psychological capital, and the underlying psychological mechanism for engineering university students’ creativity better, and they have practical implications for education administrators.