<![CDATA[The increasingly digitalized learning environment and high academic pressures pose significant challenges to accounting students’ learning participation, leading to inconsistent findings regarding how stress influences student involvement. This study aims to analyze the effect of academic stress on academic engagement while examining the mediating role of digital skills among accounting students. Employing a quantitative approach with an explanatory survey design, data were gathered through questionnaires distributed to two hundred fifty-four undergraduate Accounting and Accounting Education students at Universitas Negeri Malang from the 2023 and 2024 cohorts. Data were analyzed using path analysis and the Sobel test. Unlike previous research that predominantly frames stress as a detrimental factor, this study introduces a novel perspective by integrating digital skills as a personal resource that explains how stress can drive engagement in digital learning settings. The findings reveal that academic stress has a positive and significant effect on both academic engagement () and digital skills (). Furthermore, digital skills exert a strong positive impact on academic engagement (). The Sobel test confirms that digital skills partially mediate the relationship between academic stress and academic engagement (Sobel statistic , indirect effect ). In conclusion, digital skills serve as a crucial personal capacity that enables students to transform academic pressure into active learning participation. Higher education institutions are recommended to enhance digital competence integration and stress management programs, while future researchers should adopt longitudinal designs to examine reciprocal relationships.]]>
Copyrights © 2026
