I cannot stress this enough : an investigation on academic stress and burnout among undergraduates in Singapore

Abstract

Academic stress is synonymous with a student’s academic life as students face a myriad of potential stressors including competition, academic overload and expectations. Such prolonged state of chronic stress may manifest itself into symptoms of academic burnout including exhaustion and negative health outcomes. However, there has been limited studies conducted on the relationship between academic stress and burnout among undergraduates, especially in a local context. This study aims to examine the role of academic stress on academic burnout as well as the moderating effects of emotional intelligence and positive illusions. Undergraduates in Singapore were recruited to complete an online survey that gathered information about their (a) academic stress levels, (b) academic burnout levels, (c) emotional intelligence, (d) positive illusions, (e) personality and (f) COVID-19 perceived stress levels. Results indicated that there is a positive relationship between academic stress and burnout. Utilisation of emotions was found to moderate the relationship between academic rigour and cynicism. Irrationally optimistic beliefs was found to moderate the relationship between performance anxiety and academic inefficacy. On the other hand, results showed partial support for emotional intelligence and positive illusions as moderators on the relationship between academic stress and burnout. Implications and recommendations will be discussed so that future studies could expand on these results found by the study to mitigate academic stress and burnout levels among undergraduates in Singapore.