The Effect Of Emotional Intelligence,Locus Of Control And Knowledge Sharing On The University Student Burnout In Nigeria

The prevalence of burnout among students in Nigeria has not received enough attention as it should.The stress that university students have to endure is compounded in low-and medium-income countries like Nigeria due to a combination of factors.While the effect of burnout on academic performance is of importance to education science,the consequences of its occurrence in early career development should be of interest to human resources managers.Government policies related to the management of universities in Nigeria are handled by the Federal Ministry of Education in general,and the National Universities Commission in particular.There are government policies to ensure the adequate provision of student support facilities,and welfare services on university campuses as well as to promote student wellbeing through inter-universities sporting activities.However,there are no empirically verifiable data on the effectiveness of these policies in addressing the challenges around the well-being of students on university campuses.The focus of this research is to understand student burnout in Nigeria and investigate how the emotional intelligence,locus of control,and knowledge-sharing behavior of the students can help prevent it.Literature on student burnout has focused mostly on students in fields such as healthcare and tourism where burnout is considered a major issue.However,the lack of broad research on student burnout is a major research gap.This neglect makes it difficult to fully explain why student burnout varies across countries.Therefore,when explaining student burnout,more attention should be given to the broader perspective.First,the concepts of student burnout,emotional intelligence,locus of control,and knowledge sharing in the context of this research were defined.Then,through an extensive review of literature on the keywords of this paper,the relationships that were anticipated from the interactions of the emotional intelligence,locus of control,knowledge sharing,and burnout of university students are expected to cut across a few psychological,management,and educational science theories.Knowledge sharing among students is considered based on the students’ peer-assisted learning interactions.The framework used to understand the proposed relationships between burnout and emotional intelligence,locus of control,and knowledge sharing was based on the intersection of these theories.The simultaneous theoretical interactions that guide the conceptualization of the inter-relationships between the variables are explained with the Virginia Satir Iceberg metaphor.A stratified sampling method was adopted to gather representative data from the students from the various colleges and departments in selected universities in Nigeria.Data were obtained from the students using standardized questionnaires.Parts of the participants also attended 10-days training on either emotional intelligence or locus of control in which data were collected before,immediately after,and a month after the training.Various demographic,differential,inferential statistics,multiple regression,support vector machine,and structural equation modeling analyses were used to analyze these data and test the hypotheses developed from the understanding of the possible overlap and interactions between the variables.Second,the relationships between emotional intelligence,locus of control,and independent student burnout were analyzed.This section used various statistical analysis methods to test the various hypotheses on the relationships between emotional intelligence,locus of control,knowledge sharing,and student burnout.Then,the hypothesis on the direct effects of emotional intelligence,locus of control and knowledge sharing on the dimensions of student burnout including exhaustion,cynicism,and efficacy were also analyzed.Emotional intelligence has its strongest relationship with efficacy(0.82,p<0.001),locus of control,and knowledge sharing with exhaustion at(0.88,p<0.001)and(0.09 p<0.001)respectively.The negative relationships that were hypothesized between knowledge sharing,exhaustion,and cynicism were not supported.Therefore,more understanding of how each of the variables affects student burnout through the relationship with their dimensions was established.Third,the mediating role of knowledge sharing activities of the student on the relationships between locus of control,emotional intelligence,and student burnout was investigated.This section further considers the hypotheses on how the emotional intelligence and locus of control of the students are expected to have an impact on their knowledge sharing with peers,and in turn their student burnout.Data on the knowledge sharing of the students were used to conduct empirical analysis that provide results that shed light on how knowledge sharing mediates the aggregate relationship between emotional intelligence,locus of control,and student burnout.There is a statistically significant difference in the mean emotional intelligence,locus of control,and burnout of the bachelor’s and graduate students.60.3 % of the participants reported participating in peer-assisted learning interactions with their peers via social media.Fourth,the moderating roles of the academic obstacles and facilitators identified by the students in their context were analyzed.This section aims to identify the direct causes of academic stress as well as the resources that help the students cope with them.Obstacles and facilitators moderate the strength of the relationships between their emotional intelligence,locus of control of the students affect the burnout they experience.The obstacles and facilitators identified in this section provide the needed understanding of the conditions and infrastructures that their availability or lack thereof and how the student perceives those in relationship to stress and burnout.The fifth part is on the indirect intervention in student burnout through training in emotional intelligence and locus of control.The role that emotional intelligence and locus of control play in the burnout experience of the students.This section aims to investigate the effectiveness of training in emotional intelligence and locus of control on student burnout.This section further considers the hypotheses on how the levels of emotional intelligence and locus of control of the students are expected to change as a result of the students participating in the training.Empirical analysis of the data from the training shows the levels of the understanding of the concepts by the participants.The two-post training feedbacks show that the impact of the training was sustained.Finally,the countermeasures and suggestions to prevent student burnout and promote the general wellbeing of Nigerian students were put forward in this paper.