The Causal Relationship Between Attachment Styles and Academic Burnout of University Students Mediated by Academic Buoyancy

One of the common problems in Iran's higher education is the low level of motivation and increased academic burnout among students. Academic burnout has adverse effects on students' health and learning process. It affects students' interest in continuing their education and is an essential factor in understanding students' different behaviors, such as their academic performance. Academic burnout is a feeling of tiredness due to the demands and requirements of education, having a pessimistic and uninterested feeling about the content and assignments, and a feeling of poor personal progress in academic matters. Given that academic burnout is a complex phenomenon and is affected by several factors, it seems necessary to develop a causal model to determine the role of the academic burnout factors. In addition, burnout in students leads to their inability to do academic and non-academic work. The present research aimed to find the causal relationship between attachment styles and academic burnout mediated by academic buoyancy in university students.

The research uses a structural equation modeling technique. The study’s statistical population included all the undergrauate students of Quchan Islamic Azad University in the 2016-2017 academic year. The study participants comprised 403 students and were selected by stratified sampling method. The inclusion criteria were satisfaction and interest in participating in the research and being an undergraduate student. The exclusion criterion was not completing all questionnaires. The research measuring instruments were the Revised Adult Attachment Scale (Collins, 1996), Maslach Academic Burnout Inventory (Schaufeli et al., 2002), and Academic Buoyancy Questionnaire (Dehghanizade & Hosseinchari, 2012). The collected data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. In the descriptive statistics, the mean indices and standard deviation of the research variables were calculated. In the inferential statistics, the obtained data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling in SPSS (Version 21) and LISREL (Version 8.8) software. The significance level of the tests was α =0.01.

The results showed that among the attachment styles, only the secure attachment style had a significant positive direct effects on academic burnout (β=0.22, p<0.001) and on academic buoyancy (β =0.32, p<0.001). Also, anxious attachment style had a significant negative direct effect on academic buoyancy (β=-0.22, p<0.001). The results showed that academic buoyancy had no significant effect on academic burnout (β=0.08, p=0.098), and none of the attachment styles had an indirect effect on academic burnout mediated by academic buoyancy (p>0.01). To evaluate the goodness of the model fit, we examined the goodness indicators. The fit indices of the fitted conceptual model were CFI=0.90 and RMSEA=0.074, indicating that the model has a good fit.

Based on the research findings, secure attachment style control the students' academic burnout. Also, secure and anxious attachment styles affect academic buoyancy. Therefore, by being aware of the variables affecting academic burnout, preventive measures can be taken to reduce student academic burnout