The impact of Iranian EFL university students’ personality type on their burnout

Abstract

Burnout is a three dimensional phenomenon which is categorized as an important social problem. Personality type is also an important factor that may play a role in developing burnout. However, research has focused on job burnout, environmental factors, and their impacts on people and society and there is not much research related to student burnout and the impact of individual factors on student burnout. Thus, this study investigated the impact of EFL students’ personality type on their burnout. For data collection, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS) were given to a sample of 292 Iranian EFL students from several universities. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between extrovert-introvert and sensing-intuition groups in three components of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment). Moreover, there was a significant difference between the judging-perceiving group in emotional exhaustion and depersonalization dimensions but, there was not a significant difference between them in the personal accomplishment dimension. Besides, there was not any significant difference in the thinking-feeling group in three dimensions of burnout. The findings can give EFL teachers and students the power to predict which students will be more at risk for burnout and help them to prevent burnout.

Keywords

• burnout
• personality type
• academic year of study