Flowing toward toughness: serial mediation of flow and mental toughness in gamified XR soccer instruction

Extended reality (XR) platforms offer immersive, gamified teaching methods. However, the psychological mechanisms by which XR promotes effective sports learning remain under-explored. Drawing on self-determination theory and challenge-skill balance theory, this study proposes and tests a serial mediation model that links learners' evaluations of game-based design and their own self-regulatory abilities to soccer learning engagement and subsequent sport attachment. The model's serial structure is based on the temporal progression from situational experience to trait development: it posits that the immediate, optimal state of "flow" during a session acts as a mastery-building catalyst that eventually consolidates into enduring "mental toughness." Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze survey data from 620 higher education students enrolled in XR-based soccer courses. The results show that perceived game elements do not directly enhance learning effort. Rather, their influence is fully transmitted sequentially through the building of flow and subsequent mental toughness. Additionally, perceived self-control has a significant direct effect on learning effort and an indirect effect through mental toughness and the flow-toughness chain, but not solely through flow. Both situational flow and resilient mental states independently enhance active participation, which in turn promotes long-term sport attachment. This model highlights the importance of interweaving emotional and cognitive states in XR sports contexts to mobilize learning efforts. The findings refine gamification-in-education theory by demonstrating how transient optimal experiences accumulate into lasting psychological resources.