Detecting the changes of latent profiles in academic burnout of middle school students

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study used latent transition analysis (LTA) to examine changes in academic burnout profiles during middle school times (grade 7th-2, 8th-1 and 8th-2). In addition, this study was to examine the effects of the covariates (i.e., gender, parent education, and coping strategy) in LTA model. To do so, the first goal was to identify profile of academic burnout for middle school students at each time point based on Maslach Burnout Inventory ？ Student Survey (MBI-SS). For first aim, the following research question was presented: What kinds of burnout profiles would be identified among middle school students? The second goal was to describe developmental pattern of academic burnout throughout middle school using the LTA model. For the second aim, the following research question was presented: How do those profiles change over time? Finally, the third goal was to confirm effects of covariates for modeling change in academic profiles in LTA model. For last aim, the following research question was presented: What are the effects of covariate variables (i.e., gender, parent education, and coping strategy) on changes of academic burnout profiles over time? Total of 413 middle school students (TI: N=381, T2: N=375, T3: N=388) in Seoul, Korea participated in this study. The data was collected from one middle school of Seoul region of South Korea during three waves. Korean version of MBI-SS and Ways of Coping Checklist (WCC) were used to measure the levels of students？ academic burnout and coping strategy. All instruments in the present study measured in the final of the semester. Mplus 5.0 and SPSS 18.0 were used to analyze the data.
The results of the present study showed that the middle school students could be best described by three latent profiles representing degree of academic burnout across three times: ？distressed (DS)？, ？intermediate (IM)？, and ？well-functioning (WF)？. DS is high scores on all subscales although cynicism was slightly higher score than emotional exhaustion and inefficacy. IM is maintaining medium score on all subscales. WF is low scores on all subscales although emotional exhaustion and inefficacy was slightly higher score than cynicism. The result of the current study proved evidence that academic burnout profiles are understood according to the degree, rather than type of profiles, of academic burnout during the middle school years. In the next, results indicated that as student developed throughout middle school they were likely to transition out of the WF group and into the DS and IM group. Specially, non burned-out group, that is WF group, transited to IM group and even DS group. In addition, distressed group of the academic burnout showed stability, that is, less movement to another groups than the IM and WF groups. Further, the result showed that both active coping and passive coping consistently differentiated the academic burnout profiles throughout the course of middle school. Active coping was associated with higher percentage being in the WF versus DS. Conversely, passive coping was associated with decreased odds of being in the WF.
Based on the results of the present study, there are several implications. Specifically, the present study can be utilized for designing prevention and intervention programs for middle school students as well as teacher and parents？ training program for student discipline in school and counseling settings. First, helping professionals such as school counselors, teacher could understand the diverse types of academic burnout as well as conduct academic burnout interventions (e.g., preventing or decreasing students？ academic burnout). Second, school counselors, teachers and parents should keen attention to WF group during middle school period. Because WF group students transited intermediate group very much over middle school time. These results imply that although students are adapting easily at the moment helping professional need to conduct prevention program for general students. To do so, helping professionals could plan prevention strategies through classroom guidance focusing on WF group students. In addition, since DS group of the academic burnout showed stability, professionals have to provide intensive treatment for being DS group students. Third, this result implies that helping professionals and parents should help to prompt active coping and refrain from passive coping. How to instruct effective coping strategy to manage academic burnout for students is very important. The study implies that teachers and parents？ training to support students, as resources, could be good way to prompt active coping for middle school students. Moreover, it is crucial to implement prevention program to learn active coping and passive coping through the classroom guidance regularly.
There are several limitations associated with the present study. First, it is important to note that academic profiles were different with previous study in this study. Thus, further research is needed in order to identify the academic profiles with other populations for middle school student. Second, in the present study, the results were obtained for predominantly one middle school students in an urban community. These results may differ for other samples with different characteristics (e.g., gender, grade, academic pressure). Thus, it would be useful to replicate the results in larger samples. Additionally, it would be interesting to explore the special samples of chronic academic burnout groups having high academic demanding for middle school students (e.g., international middle school) in longitudinal designs. Third, the time interval of the study was relatively short (six months). These reason resulted in little changes of levels of each burnout profiles in this study. Thus, future study need to extended periods. The lastly, all instruments in the present research were self-reported questionnaires. In the case of self-reported questionnaires, students who experience high level of academic burnout may report low levels of burnout symptoms to minimize or maximize their symptoms. Therefore, future studies should also consider including biological indicators (e.g., blood pressure, cortisol levels) of burnout and stress to help offset the use of self-reported instruments.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• ABSTRACT I
• I. INTRODUCTION 1
• 1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 1
• 2. NEED FOR THE STUDY 5
• 3. PURPOSE OF STUDY 9
• 4. RESEARCH QUESTION 10
• 5. DEFINITION OF OPERATIONAL TERMS 13
• II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 15
• 1. ACADEMIC BURNOUT 16
• 1) Academic problems during Early Adolescence 16
• 2) Academic Problem and Burnout 18
• 3) The concept of academic burnout 21
• (1) Emotional Exhaustion 22
• (2) Cynicism 23
• (3) Inefficacy 24
• 2. PROFILES OF BURNOUT 24
• 1) Burnout Profiles 24
• 2) Developmental Model of burnout in longitudinal study 29
• 3. THE CONCEPT OF COPING 32
• 1) Defining of Coping 33
• 2) The relationship between burnout and coping strategy 34
• III. METHOD 37
• 1. PARTICIPANTS 37
• 2. INSTRUMENT 38
• 1) Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS) 38
• 2) The Ways of Coping Checklist (WCC) 39
• 3. DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLE 41
• 4. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS 41
• 1) Latent profile analysis (LPA) 42
• 2) Evaluating model fit of LPA 45
• 5. LATENT TRANSITION ANALYSIS (LTA) MODEL 47
• 1) Basic Latent Transition Analysis without covariate 47
• 2) LTA Model with Covariate 52
• 6. LTA MODELING STEP 54
• 1) Step 1: Study Descriptive Statistics 54
• 2) Step 2: Conducting a Cross-Sectional Analysis With LPA 54
• 3) Step 3: Exploring of the Latent Transition Model without Covariates 55
• 4) Step 4: Exploring the Latent Transition Model with Covariates 55
• IV. RESULTS 56
• 1. LTA STEP 1: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS 56
• 2. LTA STEP 2: LPA FOR EACH TIME POINT 61
• 3. LTA STEP 3: EXPLORING OF THE LATENT TRANSITION MODEL WITHOUT COVARIATES 68
• 4. LTA STEP 4: EXPLORING OF THE LATENT TRANSITION MODEL WITH COVARIATES 71
• V. DISCUSSION 81
• REFERENCES 92
• KOREAN ABSTRACT 118
• APPENDICE 123