Abstract
Academic anxiety frequently emerges when students perceive academic demands as uncertain, uncontrollable, or threatening. Intolerance of uncertainty is widely recognized as a key cognitive antecedent of such anxiety, influencing how learners appraise stressors and mobilize coping resources. This study investigates the relationships among intolerance of uncertainty, academic self-efficacy as a coping mechanism, and academic resilience among vocational high school students in a collectivist educational context. Data were collected from 387 vocational high school students across Istanbul, Turkey via online forms. Contrary to expectations, the results revealed that intolerance of uncertainty positively affects academic self-efficacy. Furthermore, academic self-efficacy was positively associated with academic resilience. Academic self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between these two variables. These findings provide new insights into how uncertainty is managed in collectivist educational contexts and suggest directions for future educational practices and research.