The Effect of Positive Perfectionism on Academic Burnout Among Middle-School Students: Mediating Role of Emotional Stability and Moderating Effect of Teacher-Student Relationships

Abstract

Academic burnout affects various educational and psychological outcomes. Students with high levels of academic burnout have been reported to show less interest in curriculums and harms students’ growth. Therefore, studying the psychological mechanism of academic burnout is helpful to alleviate academic burnout and improve students’ academic performance in the future. This study aims to explore the mechanism of academic burnout from external and internal factors. Using the resource protection model and process-individual-situation-time model, this study used Self-Description Questionnaire II, Teacher–Student Relationships Scale, Maslach burnout inventory–student survey, Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale to investigate the influence of positive perfectionism on middle-school students’ academic burnout as well as the mediating role of emotional stability and the moderating role of perceived teacher–student relationships. The results show that (a) positive perfectionism, perceived teacher–student relationships, and emotional stability negatively predict middle-school students’ academic burnout; (b) positive perfectionism indirectly affects middle-school students’ academic burnout through emotional stability; and (c) perceived teacher–student relationships plays a moderating role between positive perfectionism and emotional stability and between positive perfectionism and academic burnout. Students with high positive perfectionism and a good perceived teacher–student relationships have lower rates of academic burnout than students with a poor perceived teacher–student relationships. The research results are consistent with our research hypothesis and the existing research results This study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the differential impact of perceived teacher–student relationships on academic burnout among students with different degrees of positive perfectionism.