Gender differences in self-reported academic burnout among undergraduates

Abstract

Academic burnout among tertiary level students has increased significantly in recent decades, thus galvanizing studies among behavioral scholars that have investigated the phenomenon. Most of these studies adopted an approach that evaluated social and environmental factors that are predictive of academic burnout, while the role of gender in academic burnout remains under-researched. This is so even in the light of a plethora of studies which suggest that gender may be related to the experience of burnout in general. The present study therefore extended the literature by examining whether gender predicted dimensions of academic burnout using a sample of undergraduates in the final level in school. The sample consisted of 273 participants made up of 129 male and 144 female undergraduates whose age ranged between 21 years and 34 years (Mean = 22.55; SD = 3.37). Participants were all in the final year of their study in the university. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire that consisted of two sections which measured sex, and academic burnout, using a standardized scale. Result revealed no significant gender influence on dimensions of academic burnout. The findings suggested that gender influence on dimensions of academic burnout is contestable and where it is found to be significant, factors other than gender may account for such observed difference.

Keywords: Gender differences, Academic Burnout, Undergraduates