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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1501861
This article is part of the Research Topic Positive Higher Education: Empowering Students through Learning and Wellbeing View all 7 articles

The Psychological Resources of Success: Satisfaction with Academic Majors, Psychological Capital, and Achievement Motivation Among Future Tourism and Hospitality Leaders

Provisionally accepted

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Exploring the factors that drive academic achievement motivation is a vital area in educational psychology, particularly within specialized fields like tourism and hospitality higher education. Achievement motivation, essential for academic and career success, is shaped by various positive psychological resources and contextual factors. Grounded in the framework of positive psychology, this study examines how satisfaction with academic majors (SAT) predicts achievement motivation among tourism and hospitality students in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, the research investigates the mediating role of psychological capital (PsyCap) -a positive psychological construct encompassing hope, optimism, resilience, and self-efficacy -within this relationship. Utilizing PLS-SEM on a sample of 522 junior and senior undergraduate students, the findings reveal that greater satisfaction with one's major is significantly associated with both PsyCap and achievement motivation. Moreover, heightened PsyCap predicts achievement motivation, partially mediating the relationship between SAT and achievement motivation. These findings underscore the vital role of positive psychological resources in empowering students and advancing motivation, offering a validated model that informs future educational studies and interventions within tourism and hospitality while underscoring the significance of fostering psychological well-being in higher education.

    Keywords: PsyCap, Motivation to achieve, Major satisfaction, Tourism and hospitality education, Saudi Arabia PsyCap, Saudi Arabia

    Received: 25 Sep 2024; Accepted: 11 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Alismail, Almulla, Albohnyah and Abdou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ahmed Hassan Abdou, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, 31982, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.