Academic Burnout and its Association with Undesired Behaviors among Faculty Members at Al-Balqa Applied University from Students’ Perspectives

Abstract

The present study aims at identifying the association between university students’ academic burnout and undesired behaviors among faculty members at Al-Balqa Applied University from students’ perspectives. A cross-sectional design was used in this study. To collect data, convenience sampling was used to collect data from the study sample. The sample size consisted of 350 undergraduate students from different academic majors at Al-Balqa Applied University. The research instruments included the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which consists of 22 statements distributed over 3 domains: “emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment”, in addition to the scale of the unwanted behavior developed by Magableh and Abu Ghazal (2013) that covers the following domains: “teaching method, personal characteristics of faculty members, relationship with faculty members, faculty members' efficiency, classroom management and organization, motivational stimulation, and evaluation”. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) (v. 26, IBM Corp. New York City, USA). Descriptive statistics and parametric tests were used to analyze the gathered data. The results of the study showed that there is a significant statistical association between faculty members’ undesired behaviors and students’ academic burnout (r=0.361). The study concluded that faculty members’ undesired behaviors should be addressed to alleviate their impact on student's academic and psychological status. The study recommended conducting further awareness campaigns about coping strategies to alleviate the levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment. Keywords: academic burnout, undesired behaviors, emotional exhaustion, university students