Adolescents exhibit group heterogeneity in swimming self-efficacy characterized by a dual association with high-risk swimming behaviors, where excessive self-efficacy not grounded in cognitive and skill-based support is prone to inducing reckless risk-taking behavior.
Key Findings
Results
Latent profile analysis identified four distinct subgroups of swimming self-efficacy among adolescents.
The four profiles were: Fear-Avoidant Swimmer (58.6%), Tentative Swimmer (20.7%), Assertive Swimmer (14.9%), and Overconfident Swimmer (5.8%)
Sample consisted of 3,239 teenagers with an average age of 12.73 ± 1.54 years
The swimming self-efficacy scale, water safety knowledge scale, water safety skills scale, and swimming high-risk behavior scale were all used as measures
The largest subgroup by far was Fear-Avoidant Swimmers, comprising more than half of all participants
Results
High-risk swimming behaviors increased sequentially across the four self-efficacy profiles from lowest to highest self-efficacy.
Differences in high-risk swimming behaviors across all profile comparisons were statistically significant (all P < 0.001)
The sequential increase indicates that higher swimming self-efficacy was associated with greater frequency of high-risk behaviors
This pattern held across all four profiles in ascending order: Fear-Avoidant, Tentative, Assertive, and Overconfident Swimmers
Results
For Tentative Swimmers, self-efficacy exerted a statistically significant chain-mediated effect on high-risk swimming behaviors through water safety knowledge and skills.
β = 0.005, 95% CI (0.002, 0.008), P < 0.001 compared with the Fear-Avoidant Swimmer
The chain mediation pathway ran sequentially through water safety knowledge and then water safety skills
The mediating effect was described as relatively weak despite being statistically significant
Results
For Assertive Swimmers, self-efficacy also exerted a statistically significant chain-mediated effect on high-risk swimming behaviors through water safety knowledge and skills.
β = 0.006, 95% CI (0.004, 0.010), P < 0.001 compared with the Fear-Avoidant Swimmer
Like Tentative Swimmers, the chain mediation pathway ran through both water safety knowledge and skills
The mediating effect was similarly described as relatively weak
Results
The chain mediation effect through water safety knowledge and skills did not hold for Overconfident Swimmers.
95% CI for chain mediation in Overconfident Swimmers was (-0.001, 0.008), spanning zero and thus not statistically significant
However, water safety skills alone had a statistically significant direct mediating effect for Overconfident Swimmers: β = 0.036, 95% CI (0.021, 0.055), P < 0.001
This indicates that for Overconfident Swimmers, the knowledge-to-skills chain was broken, with only skills (not the full chain) providing a mediating pathway
Discussion
The risk-mitigating effects of traditional, comprehensive water safety education relying on a chain of knowledge and skills were found to be very limited.
A bias-corrected self-help method mediation analysis revealed that mediating effects for Tentative and Assertive Swimmers were relatively weak
This suggests that knowledge-to-skills chain mediation, as typically delivered in comprehensive water safety education, has limited effectiveness in reducing high-risk behavior
The finding supports implementing stratified interventions targeting adolescents' swimming self-efficacy rather than uniform comprehensive education
Discussion
Excessive self-efficacy not grounded in cognitive and skill-based support was identified as prone to inducing reckless risk-taking behavior.
Overconfident Swimmers (5.8% of sample) showed the highest levels of high-risk swimming behaviors
The chain mediation through knowledge and skills failed for this group, suggesting their high self-efficacy was not supported by corresponding safety knowledge
Groups with high swimming self-efficacy supported by water safety knowledge and skills were described as able to reduce injury risk through 'comprehensive safety preparedness'
What This Means
This research suggests that teenagers' confidence in their swimming ability (self-efficacy) does not straightforwardly protect them from dangerous swimming behaviors — in fact, higher confidence was associated with more high-risk behaviors across all groups studied. Researchers surveyed over 3,200 adolescents with an average age of about 13 and used a statistical technique to classify them into four types: Fear-Avoidant Swimmers (the largest group at nearly 59%), Tentative Swimmers, Assertive Swimmers, and Overconfident Swimmers. Dangerously high-risk swimming behaviors became more common at each step up this confidence ladder.
The study also found that water safety knowledge and skills can act as a buffer — for moderately confident swimmers (Tentative and Assertive groups), having both knowledge and practical skills helped reduce the link between confidence and risky behavior, though this protective effect was relatively small. For the Overconfident group, however, this protective chain broke down entirely: their water safety knowledge did not meaningfully connect to reduced risk-taking, and only having practical water safety skills provided any buffering effect at all. This suggests that the most overconfident teenagers may not internalize safety knowledge in a way that changes their behavior.
This research suggests that standard, one-size-fits-all water safety education programs may have limited effectiveness in preventing dangerous swimming behaviors among adolescents. Instead, programs may need to be tailored to different types of swimmers — particularly targeting overconfident teenagers with approaches that go beyond knowledge-sharing to address their inflated sense of ability. Since drowning is the leading cause of injury-related death among teenagers in the study's country, these findings have practical implications for how schools and public health programs design drowning prevention interventions.
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Yang X, Xiang S, Zhang H, Xie C. (2026). The relationship between adolescents' swimming self-efficacy and high-risk behaviors: a chain mediating model based on latent profile analysis.. Frontiers in public health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1869352