Empirical studies conducted in the Philippines show that learners struggle amidst the abrupt implementation of online education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study was conducted to determine if students can thrive in such a difficult situation and if this thriving is instrumental in building grit, that is, perseverance in achieving long-term goals. There were 181 university students (39 males, 135 females, 7 unidentified) who took part in an online survey. It was investigated if thriving can predict grit directly and indirectly through self-efficacy and if this link is moderated by academic stress. The results showed that thriving is associated with higher grit and this relationship is mediated by self-efficacy. It was also shown that the impact of thriving on grit was strongest when academic stress is high. © Copyright: The Author(s). All articles are licensed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0 ).
