The research was conducted by Manolya Sağlam of the Department of English Language Teaching at Biruni University in Istanbul and Hatice Deniz Özdemir of the Department of Psychology at Esenyurt University. Rather than relying on a single questionnaire battery, the pair adopted a sequential mixed-methods design, combining structural equation modeling of quantitative data with in-depth qualitative interviews. This dual approach allowed them not only to test statistical pathways among the three constructs but also to hear from students themselves about what family belonging, emotional expression, and recovery from setbacks actually felt like in their daily lives.

The quantitative strand drew on responses from 177 English Language Teaching students. Structural equation modeling, a statistical technique that tests whether hypothesized networks of relationships among variables fit observed data, was used to evaluate the interplay among family belonging, alexithymia, and psychological resilience. The resulting structural model showed an overall acceptable fit to the data, with a chi-square to degrees-of-freedom ratio of 2.17, a root mean square error of approximation of 0.082, a standardized root mean square residual of 0.055, a comparative fit index of 0.98, and a goodness-of-fit index of 0.94. Values in these ranges indicate that the theoretical model reproduces the observed patterns of association reasonably well.

The pattern of associations was consistent and telling. Family belonging was positively associated with psychological resilience and negatively associated with alexithymia, while alexithymia itself was negatively associated with resilience. In other words, students who felt more strongly connected to their families reported both greater emotional clarity and greater capacity to withstand stress, whereas students who struggled to name and communicate their feelings tended to report lower resilience. The most consequential result, however, emerged when the researchers examined the direct path between family belonging and resilience after alexithymia entered the model: that direct association dropped to a statistically insignificant level, with a standardized coefficient of −0.03 and a p-value above .05.

To probe whether this pattern reflected a genuine indirect pathway rather than statistical noise, the team ran a supplementary bootstrap analysis with 5,000 resamples. Bootstrapping repeatedly resamples the data to estimate the stability of an effect, and it is considered a robust method for testing indirect associations in mediation models. The analysis yielded a statistically significant indirect association of family belonging on resilience through alexithymia, with an unstandardized coefficient of 0.096, a bootstrap standard error of 0.019, and a 95 percent confidence interval ranging from 0.061 to 0.136. Because the interval does not include zero, the indirect pathway is unlikely to be a chance artifact of this particular sample.

The implications of that null direct effect are considerable. If family belonging influenced resilience directly, one might expect that simply feeling loved and included at home would be enough to buffer students against academic pressure, social stress, and the demands of teacher training. Instead, the data suggest that the benefit of family connection is channeled through emotional processing: students from close-knit families appear to develop a better vocabulary for their inner states, and it is this emotional literacy, rather than the warmth itself, that accompanies stronger resilience. Alexithymia, in this framing, functions as a gatekeeper that determines whether family support becomes a usable psychological resource.

The qualitative strand of the study added texture to these numbers. Thirty volunteers were randomly selected from the original quantitative sample and interviewed using a semi-structured protocol, with the transcripts analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Participants described their experiences of family belonging, their awareness and expression of emotions, and their strategies for coping and recovery. The researchers report that these accounts complemented the quantitative results by contextualizing how students experience the three constructs in everyday life, illustrating concretely how feeling embedded in a family relates to the ability to identify feelings and to recover from difficulty.

The choice of population is not incidental. English Language Teaching students face a distinctive combination of pressures: mastering a foreign language, developing pedagogical skills, and preparing for careers that demand constant emotional performance in front of classrooms. Teacher education programs worldwide have grown increasingly attentive to the psychological wellbeing of trainees, since emotional exhaustion during training can foreshadow burnout in the profession. Understanding which psychological resources support resilience in this group may therefore inform not only counseling services but also the design of teacher education curricula that incorporate emotional skills alongside linguistic and pedagogical ones.

Alexithymia itself has long occupied an intriguing position in psychology. First described in the 1970s in the context of psychosomatic medicine, it is not a disorder but a trait-like difficulty characterized by trouble identifying feelings, distinguishing them from bodily sensations, and describing them to others. High alexithymia has been linked to poorer stress regulation and a range of mental and physical health difficulties. The new study’s contribution lies in positioning it as the mechanism through which a family-level resource, belonging, connects to an individual-level outcome, resilience, in a specific educational and cultural context.

The authors are careful to flag the limits of what the design can show. Because the data are cross-sectional, collected at a single point in time, the indirect association should not be interpreted as evidence of a causal or temporal mechanism. It remains possible, for example, that more resilient students find it easier to feel connected to their families, or that some third factor shapes all three variables. Still, the convergence of a well-fitting structural model, a significant bootstrap test of the indirect pathway, and corroborating qualitative accounts gives the findings unusual depth for a study of this size. The researchers suggest the results may be particularly relevant to university students in similar educational and cultural contexts, and the study received no specific funding, with the authors declaring no competing interests. For educators and counselors, the message is provocative: strengthening family bonds matters, but teaching young adults to read and voice their own emotions may be the step that turns those bonds into genuine psychological strength.

Subject of Research: The mediating role of alexithymia in the relationship between family belonging and psychological resilience in English language teaching students

Article Title: The mediating role of alexithymia in the relationship between family belonging and psychological resilience in English language teaching students

Article References: Sağlam, M., & Özdemir, H. D. (2026). The mediating role of alexithymia in the relationship between family belonging and psychological resilience in English language teaching students. BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05718-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05718-5

Keywords: family belonging, alexithymia, psychological resilience, ELT students, structural equation modeling, mediation analysis, mixed methods, teacher education, emotional awareness, BMC Psychology, university students, mental health