English as a Foreign Language (EFL) student teachers have dual roles as both university students and future English teachers making them most likely to be influenced by academic and emotional pressures. To deal with their academic pressure, EFL student teachers need an ability called academic buoyancy, which has been linked to their well-being. Though many studies have discussed academic buoyancy in EFL context, none of them linked to this and well-being. This study aims to examine the two variables.
This is a quantitative cross-sectional survey study. The researchers invited students from seven universities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and 406 of them agreed to join the study. The data were collected using online questionnaires of academic buoyancy in EFL context adapted from Jahedizadeh et al. (2019) and well-being scale from Diener et al. (2009). Latent profile analysis (LPA) with Mplus 8.3 was used to group the participants.
Four distinct profiles were identified: highly buoyant and flourishing (N = 37), developing group (N = 156), a struggling group (N = 22) and moderately buoyant and well-adjusted (N = 191). These profiles suggest that while many students report relative ability to bounce back from academic difficulties and well-being, a small but important minority experience serious difficulties in both areas.
The high-needs students with difficulties with bouncing back from campus-related problems and low satisfaction and happiness need help from the campus to develop students' buoyancy and maintain or even improve their well-being. This article proposes different interventions for each profile, including active-personalized learning and cognitive-emotional support for struggling and developing students, as well as peer mentoring, enrichment activities and leadership opportunities for more buoyant students.
This study has revealed the profiles of EFL student teachers' academic buoyancy and well-being for the first time, underscoring the need for differentiated support and targeted interventions across profiles.
