Effort for solving difficult problems among university students: Why can they keep making efforts?

University students experience many difficult problems that can lead to mental illness. However, many students can solve these problems by making efforts to confront them. Previous research has showed that social support, generalized self-efficacy, future time perspective, task motivation, and difficulty of the problem are related to solving difficult problems; moreover, some of these factors are connected to each other. In this research, the primary aim was to identify the process of making an effort to confront problems, for which I have developed a hypothetical model. Additionally, students grow up in the four years of their university life. The second aim was to identify the difference between grades in the hypothesized process model. The questionnaire was completed by 399 students (96 freshmen, 95 sophomores, 89 juniors, 69 seniors, and 50 graduates). Covariance structure analysis was performed for the entire sample. The result supported the hypothetical model of making efforts, but some new connections were found. In other words, all psychological factors were complexly connected to each other. Then, I performed covariance structure analysis for my hypothetical model for each grade and compared the models. The results of this comparison showed that the strength of correlation of all factors were different across the grades. Although the factor of future time perspective had no effect on the model for the 1st grade, the effect increased with subsequent grades. Additionally, the effect of the factor of generalized self-efficacy increased with each grade