A study of the correlation among adolescents’ personal belief in a just world, resilience and teacher-student relationship: a second-order and mediation model

Abstract

Introduction Clarifying the relation among adolescents’ personal belief in a just world (PBJW), resilience, and teacher-student relationship (TSR) can inform efforts to support youth mental health. Currently, many scholars probe into the pairwise relation among PBJW, resilience, and TSR, but investigating the relation among these 3 elements as a whole may provide more theoretical insights. In view of the current research states, this study analyzes the relation among adolescents’ PBJW, resilience, and TSR, and verifies the mediating roles of TSR between PBJW and resilience. Methods This study employs questionnaire surveys and structural equation modeling to conduct the research. 1781 senior high school students in G province in China participated in this study. SPSS 25 and Amos 24 are employed to test reliability and validity of the survey, goodness-of-fit of the model, path relation, and Bootstrapping mediation effects, in order to verify 6 hypotheses proposed by this study. Results Adolescents’ PBJW is positively associated with their resilience; the former is positively correlated with adolescents’ satisfaction with TSR and negatively related to their conflict with teachers; adolescents’ satisfaction with TSR and conflict with teachers are positively and negatively linked with their resilience, respectively; TSR could mediate the relation between adolescents’ PBJW and resilience. Conclusions Relevant educational institutions can enhance adolescents’ resilience by reinforcing their PBJW and by establishing committees to oversee and enhance their TSR.