Understanding student engagement through motivation, resilience, and social support: evidence from conflict-affected schools in Myanmar

This study examines how motivation, resilience, and social support sustain student engagement in conflict-affected schools in Myanmar’s Karenni region. Amid widespread disruption to formal education, it investigates the key psychological and social factors that help students remain engaged and tests resilience as a mediating process. Surveys were conducted with 1,217 high school students, complemented by ten in-depth interviews. Quantitative analyses, including descriptive statistics, correlations, regression, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), were performed using Stata 18, and qualitative data were thematically analyzed. Results show that self-determination and emotional regulation were the strongest internal predictors of engagement, while teacher and community support served as consistent external anchors. Family encouragement did not significantly predict engagement once other supports were considered, reflecting how displacement and economic hardship weakened traditional family roles. The study highlights resilience as the process linking motivation and social ties to engagement, extending established theories to crisis contexts where institutional and familial scaffolding are disrupted.