From disengagement coping to academic self-efficacy: the conditional role of emotional competence in STEM students.

Introduction: STEM undergraduates often encounter high academic demands in contexts where stress may be normalized, potentially shaping coping strategies and academic self-efficacy. This study examined whether behavioral disengagement was associated with self-efficacy directly and indirectly via emotional competence, and whether psychological resources (hope, resilience, and optimism) moderated the association between disengagement and emotional competence. Methods: A sample of 131 first-year STEM students (M_age = 19.2, SD = 0.75) from a competitive academic context completed validated measures of coping, emotional competence, psychological capital, and self-efficacy. A moderated mediation model (Hayes Model 7) was tested using bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples. Results: The indirect association between behavioral disengagement and self-efficacy via emotional competence was significant. This indirect association was conditional: the negative association between disengagement and emotional competence, and the corresponding indirect association with self-efficacy, were stronger at average to high levels of hope, resilience, and optimism. Discussion: These findings suggest that emotional competence is meaningfully associated with the link between avoidant coping and lower self-efficacy. They also indicate that high psychological resources do not necessarily buffer the associations linked to disengagement in demanding STEM contexts.