The relationship between stress, academic burnout, and emotion regulation strategies
Summary
Objective: The literature illustrates an association between perceived stress and academic burnout (AB). However, research exploring the role of emotion regulation regarding this relationship is sparse. Thus, this study aimed to investigate whether cognitive emotion regulation strategies moderate the relationship between perceived stress and AB. Understanding this could help raise awareness regarding AB prevention and develop effective preventative strategies. Method: This study employed a quantitative correlational design. Ninety-three participants completed a Qualtrics survey, 60 females (𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑒= 22.48), 31 males (𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑒= 23.23), with one person not disclosing gender. The survey included questionnaires on current mood, perceived stress, cognitive emotion regulation strategies use, academic burnout, and neuroticism. Results: The findings revealed that perceived stress significantly predicted AB. Overall use of adaptive and maladaptive regulation strategies did not moderate the relationship between perceived stress and AB. When exploring emotion regulation strategies individually, only rumination moderated the relationship. Conclusion: The results suggest that emotional regulation strategies as a whole do not moderate the relationship between perceived stress and AB, but rumination individually does. This indicates that rumination affects students’ coping with stress and contributes to AB. This provides useful information for the preventative strategies development that could target specifically rumination. Nonetheless, this novel study is limited by its cross-sectional design not explaining the relationship causality. Hence, replication studies employing experimental designs are warranted.