Agricultural students’ academic burnout: the influence of employment challenges

ABSTRACT

This study deals with the relationship between students’ views on employment challenges and academic burnout. A survey was conducted among 247 students at Colleges of Agriculture, Iran. The data were collected by means of a questionnaire and were analysed descriptively and inferentially using SPSS/Windows. Questionnaire validity and reliability were confirmed by an experts’ panel consisting of faculty members in Tehran University and by calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, respectively. The findings indicated that there were positive and significant relationships between dimensions of academic burnout (emotional exhaustion, cynicism and academic inefficacy) with the five employment challenges (knowledge and skill (K&S), awareness and attitude (A&A), support (S), university and educational expectations (U&EE) and value of knowledge and learning (K&L)). According to standardised coefficients of regression analysis, A&A had the most effect on exhaustion and K&S had the most effects on cynicism and academic inefficacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Employment
• academic burnout
• knowledge
• skill
• attitude

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mahtab Pouratashi

Mahtab Pouratashi is an Assistance Professor at the Institute for Research and Planning in Higher Education. Her research focuses including higher education, learning, educational psychology, entrepreneurship education, and sustainable development.

Asghar Zamani

Asghar Zamani received his PhD in Higher Education Management. He is Assistance Professor at the Institute for Research and Planning in Higher Education, Department of Management studies in higher education. Some of his research interests are on knowledge management, organizational development, documentation of experiences, and governance in higher education.