Engagement, resilience, and social-emotional competence in university sports dance education: a moderated mediation model.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the associations among sports dance learning engagement, psychological resilience, perceived supportive climate, and social-emotional competence (SEC), with particular attention to a hypothesized indirect association through psychological resilience and whether the engagement-resilience association varied across levels of supportive climate. METHODS: Cross-sectional self-report data were collected from 615 undergraduate students enrolled in sports dance courses at three universities in China. Latent-variable structural equation modeling was used to examine the direct and indirect associations, and PROCESS Model 7 was used as a complementary observed-score analysis of the conditional indirect association. RESULTS: Sports dance learning engagement was positively associated with psychological resilience (β = 0.442, p < 0.001) and SEC (β = 0.364, p < 0.001), while psychological resilience was positively associated with SEC (β = 0.375, p < 0.001). A statistically significant indirect association between engagement and SEC through psychological resilience was observed (β = 0.166, 95% Monte Carlo CI [0.120, 0.213]). The engagement-resilience association was larger at higher levels of perceived supportive climate, and the index of moderated mediation was statistically significant (0.053, 95% CI [0.027, 0.080]). CONCLUSION: The findings support a statistically significant moderated indirect-association model in cross-sectional self-report data. They are consistent with the theoretically specified model but do not establish temporal sequencing, causal effects, or a developmental mechanism.