{
  "abstract": "The relationships among physical exercise, psychological resilience, and academic engagement have predominantly been examined using cross-sectional designs, which preclude inference about directionality. This study examined their longitudinal relationships in a two-wave panel of Chinese university students. Of 1,024 students who provided valid baseline data (October 2024), 876 (Mage = 20.34, SD = 1.67; 58.3% female) provided valid follow-up data 6 months later (April 2025) on exercise volume (PARS-3), psychological resilience (CD-RISC-10), and academic engagement (UWES-S). Cross-lagged panel models (CLPM) and random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) were estimated in Mplus 8.8, with longitudinal measurement invariance established for all instruments. In the CLPM, exercise volume at T1 predicted resilience at T2 (beta = 0.17, p < 0.001) and resilience predicted engagement at T2 (beta = 0.14, p = 0.003), whereas the reverse paths and the direct exercise-to-engagement path were not significant. In the RI-CLPM, which separates between-person from within-person variance, the within-person association of exercise volume with subsequent resilience remained significant (beta = 0.11, p = 0.009) and was unaffected by assumptions about the reliability of the single-indicator exercise measure, whereas the within-person resilience-to-engagement path was attenuated (beta = 0.07, p = 0.074). Neither gender nor age moderated the relationships. Exercise volume is thus prospectively associated with subsequent resilience at the within-person level, whereas the resilience-engagement link appears to operate primarily between persons. Because the two-wave design and the single-indicator exercise measure require identifying constraints, the within-person decomposition is model-implied, and these findings are best interpreted as temporally ordered associations rather than confirmed within-person causal effects; exercise promotion stands as a candidate strategy for resilience support in university populations, pending experimental confirmation.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "School of Physical Education, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, Liaoning, China"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 2,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Yuankai Qiao"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Haibin Liu"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0478zy59y7htq.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1989887",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13710058/",
  "id": "0478zy59y7htq",
  "issns": [
    "1664-1078"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1989887",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Original Research"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2737|Physical Activity and Health"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7221612835",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1989887/pdf",
  "pmcid": "PMC13710058",
  "pmid": "42947776",
  "published": "2026-10-13",
  "publisher": "Frontiers Media SA",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0478zy59y7htq.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-31T12:21:06Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13710058",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1989887"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "medicine",
      "origin": "openalex:2737|Physical Activity and Health",
      "subfield": "physiology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Longitudinal relationships between physical exercise, psychological resilience, and academic engagement in Chinese university students: a random-intercept cross-lagged panel study",
  "title_text": "Longitudinal relationships between physical exercise, psychological resilience, and academic engagement in Chinese university students: a random-intercept cross-lagged panel study",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-31T12:21:06Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0478zy59y7htq",
  "venue": "Frontiers in Psychology",
  "versions": []
}