Burnout académico en estudiantes universitariosEstudio comparativo por cursos

Abstract

Recently, it has been proposed that university students, who cope with difficult situations related to their academic responsibilities, could suffer chronic stress, which is also called academic burnout. These students often have high levels of emotional exhaustion and cynicism but low levels of perceived academic efficacy. However, it has not been determined whether academic burnout remains stable across the four grades that typify graduate studies. The aim of this study is to examine whether the levels of the three dimensions that define the academic burnout are different depending on the grade that students are performing. The sample consisted of 532 students (82.3% female and 17.7% male) from the University of Leon, from 1st (23.5%) in 2nd (22.9%) in 3rd (29.5%) and in the 4th university grade (24.1%) of different degrees. Spanish version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory - Student Survey (MBI-SS) was used to determine the levels of emotional exhaustion, cynicism and efficacy. Overall, the results show that there are significant differences between students from different academic grade on burnout levels. In particular, it was found that fourth grade students have significantly higher levels of emotional exhaustion and cynicism than those reported by first-grade university students. However, perceived academic efficacy is similar among students of all grades.