School Burnout and Mind Wandering among Adolescents: The Mediating Roles of Internet Addiction and the Moderating Role of Resilience

Abstract

School burnout is a worldwide issue that affects adolescents at every academic level. Despite the significant impact of this issue on adolescents’ mental health and academic performance, few studies have examined its influence on mind wandering and its underlying mechanisms. This research endeavors to address this knowledge gap by examining the mediating role of Internet addiction in the relationship between school burnout and mind wandering and the moderating role of resilience among 2329 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 14.9 years, SD = 1.73) through an online questionnaire assessment. Participants completed measures of school burnout, Internet addiction, resilience, and mind wandering, which were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with SPSS 23.0 and Mplus 8.0. Results demonstrated that school burnout was positively linked with mind wandering, while Internet addiction mediated this relationship. Additionally, resilience moderated the association between Internet addiction and mind wandering. These findings significantly improve our comprehension of the consequences of mind wandering and offer valuable insights into possible intervention approaches for adolescents experiencing this phenomenon.

Keywords:

• School burnout
• Internet addiction
• resilience
• mind wandering
• adolescents

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Fang Wang

Fang Wang is an associate professor in the department of Education Sciences at Huaihua University. Her research expertise is students’ academic, problem behavior, and psychosocial adjustment in childhood and adolescence.