Social-emotional competence and German academic achievement among Chinese university students: a structural equation modeling study

Introduction Social-emotional competence (SEC), including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social management, has been widely recognized as a critical factor in personal development, social adaptation, and effective interpersonal communication. As a multifaceted skill set, SEC supports holistic growth and is regarded as a strong predictor of academic success. Despite growing attention in educational studies, the application of SEC in research on learners of languages-other-than-English (LOTEs) remains underexplored. Methods This study examined the associations between SEC and German academic achievement among Chinese university students majoring in German as a foreign language (GFL). A total of 247 third-year German majors from 21 universities in mainland China participated in the study. Using structural equation modeling and mediation effect estimation, we examined whether self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social management were associated with foreign language academic achievement. Results Participants reported moderate-to-high levels of SEC. SEC was significantly and positively correlated with German academic achievement. Self-awareness was positively associated with German achievement both directly and indirectly through self-management, whereas social awareness showed a significant positive indirect association with German achievement through self-management only. Social management did not significantly mediate the associations between awareness-related competences and achievement. Discussion The findings clarify how different SEC dimensions are associated with academic achievement in a Chinese GFL context. They highlight self-management as a key mediating mechanism and suggest that socially oriented competences may contribute to test-based language achievement primarily through internalized self-regulatory processes. These results extend SEC research beyond English-learning contexts and offer implications for integrating social-emotional learning into foreign language education.