The Association Between Academic Stress And Academic Burnout Among Junior High School Students

Since the “double reduction” policy was implemented,higher requirements have been correspondingly put forward for students’ self-regulated learning ability,as well as the learning quality and outcome.The key to improve students’ learning quality lies in their self-regulated learning ability,which can motivate them to use various learning strategies actively,enhance their mastery to study,and further make them realize self-driven and achieve better future development.Meanwhile,as negative experience and feeling,academic burnout will greatly damage students’ physical and mental health and hinder their development of adaptability.Particularly for the middle school students,their academic stress is so heavy that the problem of burnout is protruded.Therefore,it is of great importance and significance to examine the influence of academic stress on burnout and the intrinsic mechanism(especially the protective mechanism).In addition,as the core factor of positive education,growth mindset,which can enable students to gain the internal and potential growth,has gained much attention recently.Thus,based on the previous literature,and combining with the individual-environment interaction model and the stressbuffer model,this research aimed to examine the relations among academic stress,burnout and growth mindset.Moreover,an intervention on growth mindset is carried out to enhance students’ growth mindset,cultivate their positive psychological quality and reduce the level of academic burnout.This study included two sub-studies: Study 1 recruited 630 students from several ordinary junior high schools in Henan and Wuhan to participated into a questionnaire study,and they were asked to complete a set of scales including Academic Stress Questionnaire,the Growth Mindset Inventory,and the Adolescent Student Burnout Inventory.SPSS 26.0was used to analyze the data with the aim to examine the current status of academic stress and academic burnout among junior high school students,the relations among academic stress,growth mindset and academic burnout,as well as the moderating model.Study 2further conducted an intervention study,with two homogeneous groups of participants,who were randomly divided into experimental group and control group.In the experimental group,16 students were invited to participate in the curriculum intervention of growth mindset,with a total of five times and once a week.The control group is treated unrelated to group counseling and lessons.The effects of the intervention are analyzed by comparing the two sets of data.The results showed that:(1)The academic burnout of junior high school students was at a medium level;there are significant grade differences in academic burnout;there are significant gender and grade differences in the growth mindset of junior high school students;there is a significantly positive correlation between academic stress and burnout.(2)Growth mindset negatively associated with academic stress and burnout,respectively.(3)Growth mindset could significantly moderate the association between academic stress and burnout,specifically,growth mindset could significantly alleviate the adverse effects of academic burnout caused by academic stress,namely,this association was weaker among students with higher level of growth mindset.(4)The curriculum intervention of growth mindset for junior high school students can improve the level of growth mindset and reduce the risk of academic burnout.In summary,this study further expands the effect mechanism and research perspective of academic burnout,clarifies the moderating role of growth mindset,enriches researches on growth mindset and its positive values and provides a valuable reference for the interventions to cultivate growth mindset and alleviate burnout.