Predictors of changes in students’ motivational resilience over the school year: The roles of teacher support, self-appraisals, and emotional reactivity

TLDR: This article examined whether a set of personal factors, such as self-perceptions of relatedness, competence, and autonomy, interpersonal resources, and emotional reactivity predict changes in motivational resilience over the school year.

Abstract: Students perform better in school to the extent they are able to engage fully, cope adaptively, and bounce back from obstacles and setbacks in their academic work. These three processes, which studies suggest are positively inter-connected, may comprise a self-sustaining system that enables motivational resilience. Using self-determination theory to frame hypotheses about such a motivational system, this study examined (1) whether a set of personal factors (self-perceptions of relatedness, competence, and autonomy), interpersonal resources (perceptions of teacher warmth, structure, and autonomy support), and emotional reactivity predicted changes in motivational resilience over the school year; (2) whether motivational resilience in turn predicted improvements in students’ achievement and also fed back to increases in their personal and interpersonal resources; and (3) whether teacher support could shift established motivational patterns. A latent path model depicting these processes showed a good fit wit...