Enhancing academic resilience through mindfulness training: an experimental study with Chinese undergraduates and the mediating role of psychological flexibility
Frontiers in Psychology November 5, 2025 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1692295 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Post-test-only control group experimental design Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 200 |
| Population | Undergraduate students from a Chinese university |
| Intervention | Mindfulness training program |
| Duration | Four-week intervention |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Generalizability theory Psychological intervention Flexibility engineering Relevance law Intervention counseling Psychological resilience Resilience materials science Applied psychology Stressor Developmental psychology Psychotherapist Clinical psychology Scarcity |
| Citations | 5 |
| Key findings | Mindfulness training significantly improved academic resilience through the mediating roles of self-compassion and psychological flexibility. |
Abstract
Introduction: This study investigates the impact of mindfulness on academic resilience among university students, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of self-compassion and psychological flexibility.
Methods: Using a post-test-only control group experimental design, 200 undergraduate students from a Chinese university were randomly assigned to either an intervention group, which received a four-week mindfulness training program, or a control group. Data were collected after the intervention using validated self-report instruments and analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).
Results: The results revealed that mindfulness significantly enhanced both self-compassion and psychological flexibility, which in turn positively predicted academic resilience. Parallel mediation analysis confirmed that both self-compassion and psychological flexibility independently mediated the relationship between mindfulness and academic resilience, with stronger effects observed in the intervention group. Multi-group analysis further demonstrated significant differences in structural path strengths between the two groups, confirming the effectiveness of the mindfulness intervention.
Discussion: These findings offer theoretical support for process-based models of resilience and emotion regulation and provide practical insights into scalable, low-cost interventions for enhancing student well-being in higher education. In addition, the study highlights culturally grounded evidence from a Chinese higher education context, addressing the relative scarcity of experimental investigations on mindfulness and resilience in non-Western settings. Limitations include the reliance on self-reported data, the use of a single-institution sample, and the short intervention period, which may constrain generalizability and long-term inference. Nevertheless, the findings support the relevance of mindfulness-based training as a culturally adaptable and resource-efficient approach to strengthening academic resilience in university populations.