Student work-study boundary flexibility and relationships with burnout and study engagement

ABSTRACT

Relatively little is known about how working students manage their dual roles of work and study. To extend this research, we examined the direct and indirect relationships between boundary flexibility-ability (the appraised capacity to modify a boundary of one role to accommodate better the demands of another role) and boundary flexibility-willingness (the preparedness to do so) in both the work and study domains and outcomes of student burnout and study engagement in a sample of 851 working students (76% female; mean age 20.69 years). We tested the indirect paths via work-study conflict and facilitation. Both work and study flexibility-ability and flexibility-willingness, independently and in concert, were related to student burnout (46% variance explained) and study engagement (28% variance explained) as expected, and results supported work-study conflict and facilitation as underlying mechanisms in these relationships, with the indirect path via work-study conflict being more important than that via work-study facilitation. Thus, there are benefits for students when work and study boundaries are flexible and when students are willing to make use of this flexibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Boundary flexibility-ability
• boundary flexibility-willingness
• work-study conflict
• work-study facilitation
• student burnout
• study engagement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (Discovery Grant DP180100930).

Notes on contributors

Peter A. Creed

Peter is a Professor in the School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. He holds a PhD and a Masters in Applied Psychology, and has authored ~200 referred research outputs, including journal articles, books, and book chapters. His research focuses on the application of goal setting/self-regulation theories to understand how individuals set and adjust goals, respond to goals set by self and others, and how they manage the consequences of goal disruption and implement behaviour change to improve performance and reduce stress. He is particularly interested in career development, both in young people and adults in organisational settings.

Michelle Hood

Assoc Prof Michelle Hood's broad areas of expertise are in career and educational psychology. She is interested in the role of formal and informal educational and work experiences, and contextual factors such as SES, in career development and employability, academic achievement, and well-being (e.g., engagement, burnout, work-study balance, satisfaction). She also has expertise in scale development and in learning and teaching in Higher Education. While most of her current work focuses on experiences of working and studying during tertiary education/young adulthood, she has conducted research previously in early childhood literacy and numeracy development. She is currently Head of School of Applied Psychology at Griffith University.

Paula Brough

Paula Brough is a Professor of Organisational Psychology and Director of the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing at Griffith University in Brisbane. Paula has substantial experience in leading teams of researchers on both funded grants and contract projects. Paula’s primary research is occupational stress and coping, employee mental health and wellbeing, work engagement, work-life balance, workplace conflict (bullying, harassment, toxic leadership), and the psychosocial work environment. Paula assesses how work environments can be improved via job redesign, supportive leadership practices, and enhanced equity to improve employee health, work commitment, and productivity.

Andrea Bialocerkowski

Professor Andrea Bialocerkowski's expertise focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative learning and teaching solutions in areas such as micro-credentials and professional development, online and interprofessional learning, and simulated and work-integrated learning, particularly in the area of Health. Her current research focuses on university student's work-study-life balance and student placements, although she continues to maintain currency in her profession of physiotherapy by researching upper limb injuries and outcomes. She currently is the Director of Mico-credentialing and Professional Development in Griffith Health and the former Head, School of Allied Health Sciences, Griffith University.

M. Anthony Machin

Professor Emeritus Tony Machin is a psychological scientist and organisational researcher with a focus on assessing and improving health, safety, and wellbeing in the workplace. His current research focus includes an ARC Discovery grant (2018-2021) “Juggling priorities: How do tertiary students balance work and study?”. He is strongly committed to developing students’ understanding and awareness of careers in psychological science and is a co-editor of the Australian Handbook for Careers in Psychological Science. He is a former Head of the USQ School of Psychology and Counselling and served on the APS Division of Psychological Research, Education and Training Forum. He was instrumental in starting the Australian Psychology Learning and Teaching conference series under auspices of the APS Psychology Education (PsyEd) Interest Group.

Sonya Winterbotham

Dr Sonya Winterbotham is a lecturer in Psychology at the University of Southern Queensland. She has scholarly outputs in the areas of workplace identity construction, higher education, and psychological wellbeing of older adults.

Lindsay Eastgate

Lindsay Eastgate is a researcher in the School of Applied Psychology. She recently submitted her PhD thesis that examined how students manage their work and study roles. Her PhD research also investigated students’ identity and how it relates to role management. She has experience conducting scoping reviews, mixed-methods research, and longitudinal qualitative research. Her current work focuses on work-study-life balance, student well-being, boundary management strategies, and student placements. Previously, Lindsay conducted research on employee turnover, job satisfaction, employee well-being, and cultural leadership. She also assists with teaching developmental, cultural, and workplace psychology courses.