School burnout, depressive symptoms and engagement: Their combined effect on student achievement

Abstract

Prior studies have shown that student burnout becomes more prevalent during adolescence and is associated with both depressive symptoms and school engagement. Little is known about how burnout, engagement, and depressive symptoms jointly affect students’ school achievement in terms of grades and skipping class. The main purpose of the current study was to analyse these variables within a full model in order to examine the direct and indirect effects of burnout, engagement and depression on student achievement, while controlling for gender and age. Participants were 210 Italian high school students aged 14 to 16. Student burnout was found to exert the strongest effect on school achievement, both directly, and indirectly via depressive symptoms and school engagement.