Good Relationships, Good Performance: The Mediating Role of Psychological Capital – A Three-Wave Study Among Students

Abstract

Academic Psychological Capital, or PsyCap, – a set of positive psychological resources encompassing hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism – has begun to gain attention in academia, showing positive relationships with desirable academic outcomes. However, studies in the field have paid limited attention to the social factors that may increase PsyCap and therefore may lead to positive outcomes. In the present study, we examine whether academic PsyCap mediates between teacher-student relationships and academic performance as assessed by student’s GPA, using a three-wave longitudinal design. Through structural equation modeling, as expected, a statistically significant indirect effect was found between teacher-student relationships and academic performance via academic PsyCap. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed; strengths and weaknesses are mentioned; and future research directions are proposed.

The role of teacher support, students’ need satisfaction, and their psychological capital in enhancing students’ self-regulated learning

“…For students, they may also run formal training to explain the conceptual mean-ing of self-regulated learning, its relationship with academic achievement (Zusho, 2017), and those personal and contextual factors which can help them to achieve highly efficient self-regulated learning (Zhu & Mok, 2018). Also, institutions can organize intervention programs for both teachers and students to develop their psychological capital (Carmona-Halty et al, 2019;Luthans et al, 2012). Previous research showed improvement in psychological capital after specific training and emphasized its visible, long-term effects (Dello Russo & Stoykova, 2015).…”

“…The personal variables refer to students' psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness), which can be satisfied in relation to other contextual variables (e.g., teacher support or learning environment), and to students' psychological capital. As a newly proposed construct, students' psychological capital represents a set of malleable personal resources consisting of self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience (Carmona-Halty, Schaufeli, & Salanova, 2019). It is considered a valuable individual resource for the effectiveness of learning, influencing students' readiness and desire to learn and to transfer learning (Combs, Luthans, & Griffith, 2009).…”

“…If teachers provide students with support, guidance or feedback, they will create an educational environment that can satisfy the students' psychological needs and increase their study engagement (Rahmadani, Schaufeli, Ivanova, & Osin, 2019). Moreover, building highquality relationships with their students (i.e., satisfying their need for relatedness), teachers can help students to develop their psychological capital (i.e., a source of motivational energy, which may help students to strive for and achieve their goals - You, 2016), which, in turn, would develop their necessary skills and attitudes to meet academic requirements (Carmona-Halty et al, 2019). Psychological capital increases positive emotions (Probst, Gailey, Jiang, & Bohle, 2017), and positive emotions enhance students' motivation and their use of learning strategies (You, 2016).…”

Exploring Links between Polychronicity and Job Performance from the Person–Environment Fit Perspective—The Mediating Role of Well-Being

“…Research indicated that supervisors showing similar preferences, personality traits, living backgrounds (including age, gender, race, education, seniority), and work modes with their subordinates had higher interpersonal attraction for both parties, resulting in greater interaction frequency and higher subordinate job satisfaction [20]. Carmona-Halty et al [27] discovered that operators with consistent work values with the supervisor had higher satisfaction and organizational commitment; therefore, they were more willing to commit to and concentrate on the organization. Furthermore, the interaction of supervisor and subordinate time-structuring preferences affected the subordinate's opinions regarding the job.…”

Healt promotion in the work context, beyond a healthy organizational model

“…In relation to the COR, the resources related to the psychological well-being of employees at work are nothing more than the combination of personal resources, such as hope (ability to assume the best persevering position on the objectives), effectiveness (competence to trust is their own skills), resilience (ability to overcome obstacles) and optimism (positive state facing the future), among others [41].…”