The mediating effect of perceived coach’s emotional support to life satisfaction, curiosity, academic resilience and sports engagement

This predictive-causal study examined the direct effects of life satisfaction, curiosity, and academic resilience on sports engagement among 399 purposively selected student-athletes from a public higher education institution and investigated the mediating role of perceived coach’s emotional support in these relationships. Using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling, results indicated that curiosity significantly predicted sports engagement, except life satisfaction and academic resilience. Furthermore, academic resilience significantly predicted perceived coach’s emotional support, except life satisfaction and curiosity. Moreover, perceived coach’s emotional support had not significantly predicted sports engagement and had not mediated the relationships between life satisfaction, curiosity, academic resilience, and sports engagement. These findings highlighted the critical role of curiosity and resilience in enhancing student-athlete engagement, suggesting that self-driven motivation had played a stronger role than external emotional support from coaches. The study’s main limitation had been its focus on a specific population, restricting generalizability. Future research should explore longitudinal designs to assess causal relationships over time. In this, integrating curiosity-driven learning strategies in sports training and developing targeted resilience-building programs for student-athletes to sustain engagement in sports are highly recommended.