dose academic burnout predicts life satisfaction or life satisfaction is

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INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS

COPY RIGHT 2012 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 668

APRIL 2012 VOL 3, NO 12

Dose academic burnout predicts life satisfaction or life satisfaction is

predictor of academic burnout?

Zeinab Rostami10

*, Mohammad Reza Abedi11

Abstract Objective: the aim of this research was to study the relation of student burnout with life

satisfaction. Method: 238 female students of the University of Isfahan were selected through

simple random sampling and answered the inventories. Results: Data were analyzed using

Pearson and Regression methods. Results indicated that academic burnout and life

satisfaction are each other's predictors.

Keywords: Academic burnout; Life satisfaction; Female University Students.

1. Introduction

Burnout is a psychological syndrome characterized by exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy

(Schaufeli et al., 1996). Emotional exhaustion, which represent a prolonged emotional

draining experienced in connection with work activities; cynicism, which represent a loss of

interest and belief in the job and the organization; reduced personal efficacy, which represent

a perception of inability to perform as required by the job (Freudenberger, 1974).

Burnout was initially detected in human services requiring intense interpersonal interactions,

but following research has shown that the construct applies to virtually every occupation

(Schaufeli et al., 2002). Burnout in university student has not yet received as much attention

as burnout in employees, but there is increasing recognition that burnout is a problem

affecting many college and university students (Jacobs & Dodd, 2003). Moreover, there is

growing evidence indicating that undergraduate university students experience study-related

burnout, that student burnout has the same three-component structure as that of worker

burnout (Schaufeli, 2007).

However, studies investigating burnout in university students confirm that academic burnout

is a significant problem associated with poor academic performance (Schaufeli et al., 2002),

low self-efficacy (Yang, 2004), concern over mistakes and doubts about action (Zhang et al.,

2007), and low coping effectiveness (Gan et al., 2007).

According to researchers student burnout is related to various variables (Schaufeli, 2007;

Morgan, 2008; Lingard, 2007). One of the areas that may relate to student burnout is life

satisfaction. According to Diener (2000) life satisfaction stands for a global judgment of

subjective well-being. Demerouti et al., (2000) believed that life satisfaction can be described

as the extent to how much a person's life is satisfying her/his physical and psychological

desires and wishes. The person desires and wishes can be reflected in many different areas

person's of life, like when the person is a worker, a parent, a wife / husband and a friend or

maybe a student.

To our knowledge, no study so far has investigated the relationships between student burnout

and life satisfaction. Some study investigated burnout and life satisfaction among nurses

(Demerouti, 2000; lee, 2004). The main goal of this study was to examine the relation

between student burnout and life satisfaction among female students of university of Isfahan.

1 *Corresponding author. MS student. Zeinab Rostami, Department of counseling and guidance, university of

Isfahan, Isfahan, Islamic Republic of Iran. 2 Ph.D. Mohammad Reza Abedi, Department of counseling and guidance, university of Isfahan, Isfahan, Islamic

Republic of Iran.

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2. Method

2.1. Participants

The participants were 238 female university students that were selected with simple random

sampling.

3. Measures

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (Student-Survey) (MBI-SS; Schaufeli et al, 2002): This

scale, designed to measure the burnout level of students, contains of 15 items which evaluate

the dimensions of Emotional Exhaustion (EX) (5 items, for example: I feel exhausted at the

end of university day), Cynicism (CY) (4 items, for example: I feel more cynic about

applying my lessons ), Academic Efficacy (EF) (6 items, for example: In my opinion I am a

good student). Student must indicate the level of agreement with every item, which were

scored on a 7-point frequency rating scale ranging from 0: Never to 6: Always. High scores

on EX, CY and low scores on EF are indicative of burnout (Academic Efficacy items are

reversed scored).

In the first form of MBI-SS reliability of this inventory through the method of internal

consistency in sample of Dutch, Portugal and Spanish has been reported:

Spanish sample (EX 0/74, CY 0/79, EF 0/76).

Portugal sample (EX 0/79, CY0/82, EF 0/69).

Dutch sample (EX 0/80, CY 0/86, EF 0/67).

In Iran Rostami et al. (2012) examined reliability of this scale with Cronbach's Alpha method

and test-retest method. Coefficient Cronbach's alpha for the EX, CY and EF respectively was

.88, .90, .84 and show good internal consistency and (0/78) for. Test-retest reliability about 4

weeks later, obtaining a reliability coefficient of .89, .84 and .67 respectively for EX, CY and

EF, which result show the good stability of the tool. The Concurrent validity of this tool also

with the University Depression Inventory (USDI) is confirmed.

The Life Satisfaction Researcher Made Scale: the participant asked to determined their life

satisfaction by rating from 0(never) to 100(severely).

4. Results

To study the relation academic burnout with of life satisfaction, each three subscales of

academic burnout were negatively correlated with life satisfaction. Results are given in

Table1.

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Table1

Correlation between academic burnout and life satisfaction

Subscales of

academic burnout

Life satisfaction

Exhaustion -.40**

cynicism -.48**

Academic Efficacy -.40**

**P< 0.01

A Step-Wise Multiple Regression Analysis was performed to determine the amount of

variance in the dependent variable (life satisfaction) that could be accounted for by the

academic burnout variable and the impact of each independent variable in prediction of the

dependent variable. Result of the regression analysis revel that 26. /. Of the variance is

explained by the selected variable. Table 2 displays the Results.

Table 2

Regression coefficients and F-ratios for life satisfaction

F r R2 R.C Variable

added

Life

satisfaction

49.24 .48 .22 .23 cynicism

.042 .52 .26 .04 Cynicism,

Academic

efficacy

Table 3 gives information for the predictor variable that is included in the model. Only

exhaustion subscale was excluded.

Table 3

Regression coefficients, F-ratio, unstandardized and standardized regression coefficients for

the variable included in the model

sig t SEB B variable Life satisfaction

.000 -7.01 -.48 .24 -1.69 Cynicism

.000

.002

-5.23

-3.09

-.39

-.23

.26

.22

-1.35

-.68

Cynicism,

Academic

Efficacy

Again, Step-Wise Multiple Regression Analysis was performed to determine the amount of

variance in the dependent variable (academic burnout) that could be accounted for by the life

satisfaction variable and the impact of independent variable in prediction of the dependent

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variable. Result of the regression analysis revel that totally 54. /. Of the variance is explained

by the selected variable. Table 4 displays the Results.

Table 4

Regression coefficients and F-ratios for life satisfaction

F r R2 R.C Variable added academic

burnout

Subscales

33.71 .40 .16 .16 Life satisfaction Exhaustion

55.71 .48 .23 .23 Life satisfaction Cynicism

33.60 .40 .16 .16 Life satisfaction Academic

Efficacy

Table 5 gives information for the predictor variable that is included in the model. Life

satisfaction is predictor of every three subscales of academic burnout.

Table 5

Regression coefficients, F-ratio, unstandardized and standardized regression coefficients for

the variable included in the model

sig t SEB B variable Academic

burnout

subscales

.000 -5.80 -.40 .02 -.19 Life satisfaction Exhaustion

.000 -7.47 -.48 .02 -.14 Life satisfaction Cynicism

.000 -5.80 -.40 .02 -.13 Life satisfaction Academic

Efficacy

5. Discussion

The result showed that life satisfaction is predictor of academic burnout and vice versa. The

results was consistent with the finding of Frisch et al., (2002) that believed life satisfaction

relates to positive academic functioning as well as school dropout. Also Gilman and Huebner

(2006) founded that Correlational analyses also revealed that global satisfaction was

positively associated with students' grade point average (r = 0.32, p< 0.01).

Also Suldo, Shaffer, and Riley (2008) asserted that Life satisfaction was moderately

correlated with school satisfaction (r = .44, p < .05), personal academic beliefs (r = .44, p <

.05), attachment to school (r = .37, p < .05), and academic achievement (r = .21, p < .05).

Multiple regression analyses also showed that school climate accounted for 14% of the

variance of global life satisfaction (F (6,308) = 8.05, p < .001). Further, path analyses

demonstrated that personal academic beliefs (r = .44, p < .05) had the largest direct effect (ft)

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of .26 and indirect effects (J3) of .09 on global life satisfaction (total effect = .35). Though

these finding is about life satisfaction and study, but there is no direct research about

academic burnout and life satisfaction.

However some researchers examine the relation between burnout and life satisfaction among

practitioner that their results is consonant with this research. For example Lee et al. (2004)

wanted to look at the levels of life satisfaction, burnout, and satisfaction with work in Korean

nurses and to see to which extent satisfaction with work and burnout could account for the

variance in satisfaction with life. They have found that life satisfaction is negatively associated

with burnout. Also Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner & Schaufeli (2000) conducted a research in

regard to burnout and satisfaction with life among 185 nurses from Germany. They found a

connection between emotional exhaustion and life satisfaction. Also Gulalp et al (2008) showed

that burnout was not related to life satisfaction.

Thus, the findings in connection to life satisfaction and burnout seem to be rather inconclusive.

More research is needed in this area in general in order to determine if life satisfaction can be

associated to academic burnout. However, again, more specific research needs to be conducted

in order to find out if a relation between life satisfaction and burnout can be found for

students in particular. Life satisfaction in connection to burnout needs thus further research in

order fill the gap between the inconclusive findings. However, not much attention has been paid

to the field of students and their well-being like for example life satisfaction. It would, however,

be important to conduct research in this area since student's life satisfaction could influence their

performance at academic environments and their achievements. In addition, since the research

clearly shows inconclusive findings in relation to burnout and life satisfaction, it would be

important to conduct more research in order to contribute with more information in this area and

thus confirm or disconfirm previous findings.

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References

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