Exploring the impact of mindfulness, subjective well-being, and music engagement on academic performance of students in higher educational institutions

In nowadays competitive environment, academic performance has become an indispensable need for the survival of university students as well as for higher educational institutions (HEIs). In response to this crucial situation, the current research focuses on investigating the role of students’ cognitive and behavioral factors, namely mindfulness (MFN), subjective wellbeing (SWB), and students’ music engagement (ME) in their academic performance. This research highlights the mediating role of students’ subjective wellbeing between mindfulness and their academic performance (APE) pathways. In addition, this study examines the moderating and moderated-mediation effects of students’ music engagement on the relationship amongst their mindfulness, SWB and academic performance, respectively. The target sample of this study was university students studying in a set of Chinese universities, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the proposed hypotheses and theoretical model. The results indicated that mindfulness positively and significantly influence students’ SWB and academic performance. Furthermore, students’ subjective wellbeing partially mediates the relationship between mindfulness and academic performance. Moreover, surprisingly, the outcomes reveal that students’ ME does not moderate mindfulness—SWB relationship, whereas it positively and significantly moderates the relationship between SWB and students’ academic performance. Besides, the most interesting result was empirical evidence of the moderated-mediation effect of students’ music engagement on the relationship amongst their mindfulness, subjective wellbeing and academic performance, which is significant. Hence, these outcomes propose imperative directions for the leadership of HEIs by suggesting different ways to strengthen academic performance among university students through reinforcing their behavioral and cognitive factors.