Structural Relationships among Self-Management, Self-Resilience, and Adaptability to Chinese and Korean College Life in Physical Education Majors

Background: We aimed to investigate the relationships among self-management, self-resilience, and adaptabil-ity to college life in Chinese and Korean students majoring in physical education. In addition, we explored the mediating role of self-resilience in the relationship between self-management and adaptability to college life. Methods: Random sampling was used to identify participants majoring in physical education at five colleges and universities in Shaanxi (China) and four universities in Kyonggi-do Province (Republic of Korea) in June 2020. We analyzed data for 700 students via exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, structural equation model analysis, and path analysis. Results: Self-management had a significant impact on self-resilience (P<0.001), while self-resilience had a sig-nificant impact on adaptability to college life (P<0.001). Among self-management variables, body management had a significant negative impact on adaptability to college life (P<0.001). Self-resilience had a mediating effect on the relationship between self-management and adaptability to college life (P=0.024). Conclusion: Our findings highlight the need to develop systems that cultivate students’ abilities to integrate into university life, including their abilities to face unsatisfactory studies, manage spare time, make physical ad-justments, adapt to new living environments, and maintain interpersonal relationships. Strengthening self-management abilities will lead to improvements in self-resilience, adaptability, and satisfaction with university life among physical education majors.