Students' academic burnout in Iranian agricultural higher education system: the mediating role of achievement motivation

Abstract

Agricultural higher education is one of the important context in which students may be face with educational burnout during their studies due to their conditions, such as the nature of the field of study, lack of graduates' employment, and reduction in motivation. This research aimed to investigate the factors underpinning the student's academic burnout of Iranian agricultural higher education system. The research was a kind of descriptive-correlational that has done through a survey. The statistical population composed of all students at all educational levels in agricultural faculties of the Iranian state-run universities (N = 236,973). Accordingly, 386 people were selected using the Krejcie and Morgan's tables and stratified random sampling method with proportional to size. A researcher-made questionnaire with 104 questions arranged in six parts used for data collection. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were confirmed by calculating the Cronbach's alpha, average variance extracted (AVE) and composite reliability (CR). According to the results, the variables of high workload and achievement motivation were the most influential factors on academic burnout, respectively. This study's results can be a useful step for policymakers and planners in the agricultural higher education system to prevent student's academic burnout and remove obstacles to dynamic academic achievement.

Keywords

• Education
• Psychology
• Academic burnout
• Achievement motivation
• Proper workload
• Agricultural students