Investigating the mediating role of digital game addiction in the relationship between adolescents’ school belonging and resilience

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the mediating role of digital game addiction in the relationship between school belonging and psychological resilience of adolescents in middle school. Considering school belonging together with digital game addiction may help to better understand the risk and protective factors of psychological resilience and to create a comprehensive model of psychological resilience. Method: The sample consisted of 316 secondary school students aged between 11 and 14 (M = 12.84), 47.5% (n = 150) female and 52.5% (n = 166) male. Data were collected using a demographic information form and three self-report scales. In addition to descriptive statis- tics, Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Bootstrap Analysis were used to analyses the data. The mediating role of digital game addiction in the relationship between school belonging and resilience was analysed using the Bootstrap method with 5000 resamples. This approach is regarded as providing more accurate results compared to the Sobel test. Results: The results of the study show that there are significant positive relationships between school belonging and psychological resilience and negative relationships with digital game addiction. Also, the results of the study revealed that the mediating role of digital game addiction in the effect of school belonging on adolescents' psychological resilience was statistically significant. Conclusion: It was revealed that digital game addiction, which affects both psychological resilience and school belonging, which is a protective factor, in a very negative way, is a mediating variable whose effect should be reduced or eliminated.