Only low-arousal emotions matter: grade-dependent mediation of academic emotions between psychological resilience and learning burnout in middle school

Background Psychological resilience is known to reduce learning burnout, but it remains unclear whether low- versus high-arousal academic emotions mediate this relationship and whether such effects vary across grades. Objective This study examined the mediating roles of academic emotions and tested grade differences. Method A cluster sample of 739 middle school students (grades 7–9) from urban and rural schools completed three validated scales assessing psychological resilience, learning burnout, and academic emotions (positive/negative × high/low arousal). Structural equation modeling with bias-corrected bootstrapping was used to test mediation and grade differences. Results Resilience significantly predicted learning burnout. Only low-arousal academic emotions (both positive and negative) served as significant partial mediators, whereas high-arousal emotions did not. Notably, positive low-arousal emotions (e.g., calmness, contentment) mediated the resilience–burnout relationship exclusively in grade 9, with no such effect in grades 7 or 8. Negative low-arousal emotions (e.g., boredom) mediated consistently across all grades. Conclusion Resilience reduces burnout through low-arousal emotions. Negative low-arousal emotions are a consistent mediator throughout middle school, but positive low-arousal emotions emerge as protective only in grade 9, highlighting the need for grade-specific interventions.