Objective: To explore the influence of character strengths on college
students’ academic engagement and examine the mediating role of optimism.
Methods: 302 college students were investigated by Chinese Virtues Questionnaire,
Life Orientation Test and the Adapted version of Academic Engagement Inventory,
and SPSS19.0 software was used to process and analyze the valid data. Results: (1)
Character strengths have a significant positive effect on college students’ academic
engagement, of which conscientiousness advantage is the most obvious, relationship
advantage is the second, vitality advantage is relatively low. (2) Character strengths
have a significant positive impact on college students’ optimism, among which vitality
advantage has the most obvious effect, relationship advantage comes second, and
conscientiousness advantage has relatively low effect. (3) Optimism plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between relationship advantage, vitality advantage,
conscientiousness advantage and college students’ academic engagement. Conclusion:
Character strengths have a significant positive effect on college students’ academic
engagement and optimism, and optimism plays a partial mediating role in the
relationship between character strengths and college students’ academic engagement.