The global transition toward flexible and blended learning frameworks in higher education has necessitated a radical shift in how complex subjects like mathematics are taught and mastered. While these digital landscapes ensure academic continuity, they simultaneously introduce significant barriers, including reduced interpersonal interaction, heavy reliance on digital platforms, and heightened cognitive and emotional stress. In this context, mathematics resilience emerges as a vital construct, representing the learner's ability to persist through adversity and navigate the complexities of mathematical tasks (Cassidy, 2016). However, the effectiveness of this resilience is heavily dependent on a student’s digital literacy; despite being perceived as "tech-savvy," many learners still struggle to utilize technology as a functional tool for deep mathematical engagement (Taja-on, 2023). Consequently, there is an urgent need to investigate the interplay between mathematics resilience, digital proficiency, and student well-being to ensure that modern instructional modalities foster growth rather than academic anxiety.
In both global and Asian contexts, the shift toward digital education has underscored a critical nexus between technical proficiency and psychological well-being; while students in the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia with high digital literacy demonstrate better adaptability and performance, these technical gains are often undermined by a parallel rise in stress, anxiety, and depression (Ma. Li & Jiang, 2020; OECD, 2021). Ultimately, these findings suggest that while digital tools are essential, they cannot fully mitigate the negative impact of poor mental health, highlighting the urgent need for a holistic approach that supports both the technological and psychological dimensions of student learning.
In the Philippine context, the transition to flexible learning has exacerbated disparities in digital literacy and triggered a surge in mental health issues, with stress and emotional fatigue significantly hindering the academic performance of Filipino students (Tria, 2020; Bernardo, 2021). Despite reports from the Department of Education (DepEd, 2021) confirming the decline in both wellness and achievement, existing literature remains fragmented, typically treating mathematics resilience, technology use, and psychological status as isolated factors rather than an integrated system. Consequently, there is a critical research gap regarding how these variables collectively interact, necessitating a study that employs structural equation modeling to provide a comprehensive understanding of their combined impact on mathematics achievement in Philippine higher education.
This study is anchored in these three frameworks to create a holistic model where internal motivation, psychological endurance, and technical proficiency converge to predict academic success. Achievement Goal Theory (Middleton & Midgley, 1997) and Expectancy-Value Theory (Eccles et al., 1983) justify the focus on the student's psychological state, suggesting that mathematics achievement is driven by a student's belief in their capability (expectancy), the value they place on the subject, and their specific goals—factors that directly influence mental health and mathematical resilience. Simultaneously, the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1985) provides the necessary rationale for including digital literacy, as it posits that a student’s comfort and perceived ease with digital tools are critical prerequisites for performance in a modern educational landscape. By utilizing Structural Equation Modeling, the study can validate how these diverse theoretical dimensions—motivation, mindset, and technical adaptation—interact as a unified system to determine a student's mathematical outcome.

Research Design This study is quantitative in nature and made used of descriptive-correlational and causal comparative research designs. Descriptive research helps identify the attributes of a particular phenomenon based on an observation or the exploration of correlation between two or more variables (Creswell, 2002). Thus, the study examined the relationship of academic resilience, digital literacy, and mental health status towards mathematics achievement. Moreover, this study focused on fitting the data to hypothesized models of academic resilience, digital literacy, and mental health status and mathematics achievement of students. Hence, causal comparative design will be employed to examine how the independent variable affects the dependent variable and involves cause and effect relationships (Williams, 2011). Respodents and Sampling Technique This study utilized a stratified sampling technique to select 279 first-year College of Education students from the University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP) who were enrolled in the Mathematics in the Modern World course for SY 2024-2025. By dividing the population into 19 academic programs across the CEd and CTET colleges and selecting 15 students per stratum, the researchers ensured a representative sample that exceeds the minimum requirement of 250 participants recommended for robust Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) (Boomsma, 2000). To maintain the integrity of the sample, the study specifically included only regular students within these programs, excluding those who were cross-enrolled from other departments. Instruments To gather the necessary data for the structural model, this study utilized four distinct instruments: the Academic Resilience Scale (Simbulas, 2018) to measure students' psychological persistence, the Digital Literacy in Higher Education Questionnaire (Miranda, Isaias & Pifano, 2018) to evaluate technical competencies, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-42 (DASS-21) to assess mental health status, and a 45-item multiple choice Mathematics Achievement tesrt to quantify academic performance. To ensure the scientific rigor of the findings, these adapted instruments underwent a rigorous process of content validity by subject matter experts and reliability testing to confirm that they consistently and accurately measure the specific constructs within the Philippine higher education context.

Conclusion (up to 300 words) The regression result weights on the effect measured variables to latent variables showed that mathematics resilience and digital literacy significantly predict mathematics achievement since the computed p-values of the two (2) latent variables are greater than the critical value which is .05. Since mathematics resilience has high correlation, and digital literacy has low correlation, it implies that mathematics resilience is more important than digital literacy comparably based on beta weights between 2.16 and -0.87. To determine if the model is a good model or not, the criterion of each model fit indeces were considered. The result revealed that the model satisfied with the p-value, which is greater than 0.05, Root Mean Square of Error Approximation (RMSEA) is less than 0.05, P-close is greater than 0.05. Moreover, in the following indices satisfy the criteria to have a model fit namely: Chi-Square/Degrees of Freedom (CMIN/DF) is lesser than 2, Normed Fit Index (NFI) is greater than 0.95, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) is greater than 0.95, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) is greater than 0.95 and Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) is greater 0.95. Based on the findings of the study, mathematic resilience and digital literacy are the strong determinants of mathematics achievement. Thus, the best fitting structural model is composed of mathematics resilience and digital literacy for mathematics achievement. The institution should institutionalize mathematical resilience by integrating growth-mindset interventions and grit-based problem-solving strategies directly into the Mathematics in the Modern World curriculum, shifting the focus from mere rote memorization to psychological persistence. Concurrently, the university must prioritize a robust digital literacy program that goes beyond basic software use; by providing targeted training in technical data analysis and digital collaborative tools.

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