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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 9, No. 9
Publication Date: September 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/assrj.99.13113. Yongmei, H., & Dan, W. (2022). The Influence of Academic Stress on Academic Burnout among Middle School Students in
Guangdong. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(9). 404-411.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
The Influence of Academic Stress on Academic Burnout among
Middle School Students in Guangdong
Hou Yongmei
Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and
Administration, Guangdong Medical University
Dongguan, Guangdong, China
Wen Dan
Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and
Administration, Guangdong Medical University
Dongguan, Guangdong, China
ABSTRACT
Objective: To explore the characteristic of academic stress and academic burnout,
and analyze the impact of academic stress on academic burnout among middle
school students in Guangdong Province, China. Methods A stratified cluster
sampling method was used to select 1011 students from 6 middle schools in
Guangdong province. Academic Stress Scale for Middle School Students (ASSMSS)
and Academic Burnout Scale for Middle School Students (ABSMSS) were used to
investigate them. Results (1) The total scores of ASSMSS and ABSMSS were
(60.86±9.31) and (231.43±37.54), respectively. (2)The students with rather serious,
serious, general, light academic burnout accounted for 13.60%, 20.53%, 24.43%
and 41.44%, respectively. The students with serious, general and light academic
stress accounted for 66.32%, 3.81% and 29.87%, respectively. (3) the result of
multivariate stepwise linear regression showed that the scores of competitive
stress, task requirement stress, frustration stress and expectation stress were
positively correlated with the total score of ABSMSS (β=.258-.459,all P <.001).
Conclusions The academic stress and academic burnout of middle school students
in Guangdong are rather serious. Academic stress may be an important influenced
factor of academic burnout.
Key words: Middle School Students; Academic Stress; Academic Burnout; Influencing
Factor; Multivariate Stepwise Linear Regression
Academic burnout is the extension of the concept of “burnout”. So far, there is no unified
definition. Most scholars believe that academic burnoutis the phenomenon that due to the long- term excessive academic needs which are beyond individuals’ resources and difficult to deal
with. Students shrink back or are unwilling to devote to studying, resulting in the exhaustion of
body, emotion, attitude, etc., having no sense of learning, and gradually losing learning interest
and motivation, decreasing learning performance and self-worth [1].
Stress is a frequently mentioned concept related to burnout. Maslach believed that only when
individuals were under work stress for a long time, and there was no effective buffer resources
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Yongmei, H., & Dan, W. (2022). The Influence of Academic Stress on Academic Burnout among Middle School Students in Guangdong. Advances in
Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(9). 404-411.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.99.13113
and insufficient social support, could these irreconcilable work stresss develop into job burnout
[2].
Academic stress is the main stress of middle school students in China. Academic stress ranks in
the top two in all grades of middle schools. More than 40% of middle school students believe
that learning stress is great. The higher the grade is, the greater the learning stress is. On the
other hand, this percentage is increasing year by year [3-7], which is also significantly higher
than that of developed countries such as Japan, South Korea and the United States during the
same period [8-9], and has become the main inducement of middle school students' mental
maladjustment and academic burnout [10-12].
Previous studies on the relationship between middle school students' academic stress and
academic burnout mostly focus on theoretical analysis, and there are few empirical studies that
systematically explain the relationship between them.
Based on the above analysis, this study intends to explore the relationship between middle
school students' academic stress and academic burnout with a large sample and multi center
survey model by taking Guangdong Province as an example.
OBJECTS AND METHODS
Objects
Sample size estimation
The minimum sample size is calculated by G * power 3 [13]. Previous studies have shown that
the test effect value of domestic studies on middle school students' academic burnout is at the
medium level, that is, the D value is 0.50-0.80 [10,12,14-17]. In this study, we set the effect value
d = 0.70, and the statistical test power is 1- β = 0.80, the type I error probability α= 0.05. Because
there are 5 independent variables in this study, the minimum sample size required for the
investigation is calculated as 118. Due to a 20% of possible follow-up loss rate, the minimum
sample size is determined as 143.
Sampling
A stratified cluster sampling method is used to select a total of 1100 middle school students
from 36 natural classes of 6 middle schools in Guangzhou, Zhanjiang and Shaoguan, Guangdong
Province. There are two middle schools in each city, and one natural class in each grade from
grade 7 to grade 12 in each middle school. 1011 valid questionnaires are collected, with an
effective rate of 93.6%. The age ranged from 13 to 19 years, with an average age of (16.36 ±
1.38) years. Among them, 581 boys and 430 girls; 842 only children and 169 non only children;
604 urban students and 407 rural students; 182 in grade 7, 178 in grade 8, 174 in grade 9, 183
in grade 10, 164 in grade 11 and 131 in grade 12; There are 129 rich families, 265 well-off
families, 471 ordinary families, 105 pover-line families and 41 needy families.
Tools
Academic Burnout Scale for Middle School Students, ABSMSS
It is compiled by Yang Lixian et al. (2007) [17]. ABSMSS has 20 projects which are divided into
three dimensions: depression, misconduct and low sense of achievement. The Likert 5-point
scoring method is used to score from 1 to 5 points corresponding to “completely unqualified”
to “completely qualified”. The higher the score, the more serious the academic burnout. In this
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 9, September-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
study, the Cronbach's a coefficient of total questionnaire is 0.841, and the Cronbach's a
coefficient of each dimension is 0.758-0.794.
Academic Stress Scale for Middle School Students, ASSMSS
Compiled by Chen Xu (2004) [18], 62 items are divided into five dimensions: competitive stress,
task requirement stress, frustration stress, expectation stress and self-development stress. The
Likert 5-point scoring method is used to score from 1 to 5 points corresponding to “no stress”
to “great stress”. The higher the score, the greater the academic stress. In this study, the
Cronbach's a coefficient of total questionnaire is 0.889, and the Cronbach's a coefficient of each
dimension is 0.807-0.855.
Self-compiled General Personal Information Questionnaire
It includes 5 items, namely, gender, grade, only child or non only child, family economic status,
origin.
Data Processing
SPSS 20.0 software is used for statistics and analysis. Descriptive statistics is used to calculate
the average score and standard deviation of each scale; Pearson product moment correlation,
independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA are used to explore the correlation between
variables; Multiple stepwise linear regression is used to analyze the influence of the scores of
five dimensions of ASSMSS on the total score of ABSMSS.
RESULTS
Descriptive Statistics
It can be seen from table 1 that the total score of ASSMSS and the scores of five dimensions are
all greater than 3.5, which belongs to the high level; The total score of ABSMSS and scores of
three dimensions are all greater than 2.5 and less than 3.5, which belongs to the medium level.
At the same time, the frequency statistics shows that 138, 208, 246 and 419 students have
rather serious, serious, moderate, as well as light or no academic burnout, accounting for
13.60%, 20.53%, 24.43% and 41.44%, respectively; the number of students with high, medium
and low sense of academic stress are 671, 39 and 302, accounting for 66.32%, 10.49%and
23.19% respectively.
Table 1 Descriptive statistics of total score and dimension scores of each scale (n =1011)
Dimension item number M±SD Min Max M of items SD of items
depression 8 23.47±5.57 8.00 39.00 2.93 0.70
Misconduct 6 18.30±3.60 6.00 27.00 3.05 0.60
Low sense of achievement 6 19.10±3.36 6.00 26.00 3.18 0.56
Total score of ABSMSS 20 60.86±9.31 20.00 83.00 3.04 0.47
Competitive stress 11 40.70±8.23 19.00 55.00 3.70 0.75
Task requirement stress 18 69.07±11.49 33.00 90.00 3.84 0.64
Frustration stress 13 46.32±9.43 24.00 65.00 3.56 0.73
Expectation stress 17 64.45±10.96 32.00 85.00 3.79 0.65
Self development stress 3 10.89±2.30 5.00 15.00 3.63 0.77
Total score of ASSMSS 62 231.43±37.54 62.00 310.00 3.73 0.61