The mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship between epidemic anxiety and academic motivation of physical education teacher candidates

Background and Study Aim. In addition to their physiological effects, epidemics negatively affect the motivation of individuals by causing varying levels of psychosocial problems such as stress, fear, anxiety and depression. At this point, psychological resilience is considered as an important variable in reducing and preventing the psychological effects of epidemic anxiety. The main purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of psychological resilience in the relationship between epidemic anxiety of physical education teacher candidates and their academic motivation. Materials and Methods. The study group of the research, which was designed in the relational screening model, consists of 451 physical education teacher candidates. They are studying in the 4th grade of the Physical Education and Sports Teaching program of the universities. The data of the research was collected with “Personal Information Form”, “Epidemic Anxiety Scale”, “Academic Motivation Scale” and “Brief Psychological Resilience Scale”. Descriptive statistics techniques, correlation and regression analyzes were used to analyze the data. The PROCESS macro extension was used for mediation analysis. Results. The mean score levels of physical education teacher candidates were 57.03±14.52 for epidemic anxiety, 92.74±15.72 for academic motivation, and 20.26±5.00 for psychological resilience. While epidemic anxiety predicted psychological resilience (95%CI [-0.168; -0.109], p<.001) negatively, psychological resilience predicted academic motivation positively in a significant way (95%CI [0.727; 1.331], p<0.01). When psychological resilience was included in the model, the overall effect of epidemic anxiety on academic motivation (95%CI [-0.083; 0.123], p>0.05) became insignificant. Psychological resilience has a mediating role in the relationship between epidemic anxiety and academic motivation. Conclusions. Psychological resilience emerged as an essential variable in preventing the psychological effects of physical education teacher candidates regarding epidemic anxiety and increasing their academic motivation.