International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev

Factors aecting student burnout and academic achievement

in multiple enrollment programs in Taiwans
technicalvocational colleges
Hui-Jen Yang

Information Management Department, National Chin-Yi Institute of Technology, No. 35, Lane 215, Sec. 1, Chung-Shan Road, Taiping
City, Taichung 411, Taiwan, ROC

Abstract
Instead of the 44-year joint entrance examination held so far in Taiwan, multiple enrollment programs are a more
recent policy of the Ministry of Education to reform the deciencies of the abovementioned examination. However,
the results of multiple enrollment programs in reducing student pressure are not clear. Therefore, the main purpose
of this research is to investigate the impacts of multiple enrollment programs on student burnout and academic
achievement among technicalvocational college students. The result demonstrates that multiple enrollment programs
have a signicant eect on student burnout and academic achievement. Student burnout has a signicant negative
eect on academic achievement.
# 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Technicalvocational education; Multiple enrollment programs; Burnout; Social support; Course load; Self-ecacy;
Fairness; Academic achievement

1. Introduction
There are ve categories of higher education
systems in Taiwan, which include 5-year junior
college, 2-year technicalvocational junior college,
4-year technicalvocational university, 2-year
technicalvocational university/senior college, and
4-year general university. However, the 5-year
junior college and 2-year technicalvocational
junior college do not lead to a bachelors degree.
The 4-year general university, 4-year technical
vocational university, and 2-year technical
vocational university/senior college lead to a

Tel.: +1-850-644-2744; fax: +1-850-644-8281.

E-mail address: [email protected] (H.-J. Yang).

bachelors degree. The detailed structure is shown

in Fig. 1. When students graduate from junior
high school and pass the 5-year junior college
entrance examination, they are entitled to study at
a 5-year junior college. Students who have graduated from technicalvocational senior high
school and passed the 4- and 2-year technical
vocational junior college entrance examination
can study at 4-year technicalvocational universities or 2-year technicalvocational junior colleges. Students who have graduated from 2-year
technicalvocational university/junior college and
passed the 2-year technicalvocational senior college/university entrance examination can study at
2-year technicalvocational universities/senior colleges. Students who have graduated from general

0738-0593/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2003.12.001

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H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

Fig. 1. The structure of higher education systems in Taiwan.

senior high school and passed the university

entrance examination can study at a 4-year general university.
Briey speaking, there are two types of joint
university entrance examination. One caters to
general junior high school students who intend to
study at a general university, and the other
accommodates technicalvocational senior high
school students who intend to study at a technicalvocational university/college. Traditionally,
the joint university entrance examination has
been the exclusive route to enter a university or
college for 44 years from 1954 until 1998 in Taiwan. The joint university entrance examination
has been considered the fairest and most prevalent test medium appropriate for local needs,
regardless of whether it is for general university
or technicalvocational university/college. It was
an impartial, non-discriminative system that
oered equal opportunities to every Taiwanese
student with no consideration of physical, nancial, or superior social status. The only criterion
was that a student had to pass the joint university
entrance examination. However, true to traditional beliefs and deeply engraved, through the
ages, in the grain of Chinese national identity and
conscious, there is a deep-rooted principle in the
mind of the Chinese people that there is nothing
more noble and enriching than to gain profound
intellectually stimulated knowledge through
studying. As a result, diplomas and certicates

have become extremely important in Chinese

society.
In order to enter a good school, performance
in the joint university entrance examination was
of vital importance. The students performance
was closely related to the teachers performance
in class. Unfortunately, this led to an unhealthy,
unbalanced, and abnormal situation in the total
education process, where too much emphasis was
placed on primarily coaching students to pass and
perform well in the entrance examination. It also
placed a heavy burden on students and parents
alike. The academic pressure on students led to
enormous pressure. Attending so-called private
cram schools and acquiring personal tutors after
normal school hours and at great cost became the
norm rather than the exception. This led to an
outcry from the public at large, politicians, and
the mass media, who revolted against this practice. To counter the criticism and satisfy the public demand for action, the education authorities
initiated a new system. This new initiative became
top priority and was aimed at liberalizing the
nations education system, enhancing the learning
culture and positively relieving the pressure on
the students caused by the joint entrance examination designed for entrance into a 4-year general
university, 4-year technicalvocational university
or 2-year technicalvocational university/senior
or junior college.

H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

Therefore, in 1998, the Ministry of Education

became actively involved in designing a new form
of joint entrance examination university school
enrollment system to relieve student stress and
pressure, and by doing so increase students
academic achievement. The student enrollment
method has thus been changed to include three
distinctive categories, namely, admission via
recommendation and screening, admission application and examination distribution. Consequently, we would like to analyze and research
the impacts on student learning condition and
performance of this new type of entrance system.
Burnout and academic achievement will be
studied under multiple enrollment programs.
The impact of multiple enrollment programs
has been a focal point for the media, public, educators and researchers on general universities
since 1998. However, little attention has been
devoted to exploring student burnout and its
antecedents, especially to examining student
burnout in technicalvocational college/university under the multiple enrollment programs. In
reality, public and private technicalvocational
colleges/universities provide over half of the
higher education needs of Taiwan. To date, there
are in total about 151 (still increasing) public and
private general, technicalvocational and other
types of colleges or universities (Ministry of Education Site, 2003). There are currently 47 general
universities and 92 technicalvocational colleges/
universities, including both public and private
ones (Ministry of Education Site, 2003). The
number of technicalvocational colleges/universities is nearly double that of general universities. From the above statistical data, it can
be seen that technicalvocational colleges/universities have the highest percentage in Taiwan.
The impacts of multiple enrollment programs on
technicalvocational colleges/universities should
not be ignored. For this reason, the technical
vocational college/university was chosen as a
research eld for closer investigation.
The main purpose of this research is to examine student burnout and academic achievement
under these three types of multiple enrollment
programs in technicalvocational colleges. In
addition, this research project attempts to employ

285

the conservation of resource (COR) theory and

social cognitive theory (SCT) as a basis, to examine the dierences between the factors inuencing
the burnout phenomenon and academic achievement of technicalvocational college students
under multiple enrollment programs. A COR
theory has been presented as a model for understanding the nature and inuence of all levels of
stress (Hobfoll, 1988, 1989; Freedy and Hobfoll,
1995; Hobfoll et al., 1995). SCT (Bandura, 1977b,
1978, 1982, 1986) is a widely accepted and empirically validated model of individual behavior. In
COR, social support and course load are two
important environmental factors that explain the
burnout phenomenon (Jackson et al., 1986). Selfecacy, the belief that one has the capability to
perform a particular task, is an important dimension in SCT. Hence, two major factors of burnout among technicalvocational college students
were studied in this research. These include three
external environmental factors, viz. social support, course load, and fairness, and one internal
factor, namely self-ecacy. The Maslash burnout
inventory (MBI)general burnout scale modied
by Meier and Schmeck (1985) is used to measure
burnout by having students complete a questionnaire. A more general contribution is to examine
the predictive power of student burnout in
explaining student academic achievement. It is
anticipated that the results will provide some help
or indications in understanding the performance
and application of multiple enrollment programs.
2. Literature review and research model
2.1. Multiple enrollment programs
In 1998, the Ministry of Education became
actively involved in designing multiple enrollment
programs for university school systems in an
attempt to reduce student stress and provide students with more opportunities to learn and
choose the school or eld they are interested in.
Meanwhile, it provides chances for schools to
establish their own identity and have autonomy
in selecting suitable students, and also provides a
mechanism to balance the development of general

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H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

high school and high school technicalvocational

education. Student enrollment has been changed
to include three distinctive types, namely admission via recommendation and screening, admission application and examination distribution.
Recommendation and screening is aimed at technicalvocational senior high school students
whose grades are among the top 25 in a 50 student class, and who in addition have the qualication to apply to the school they want to study
at or are interested in. The recommendation and
screening method consist of an oral test and a
personal record assessment. The personal record
assessment includes reference to academic performance, social relations in a school environment, competitiveness, technique certication,
letter of recommendation, etc. The committee of
each school decides the grading ratio of the oral
test and personal record assessment.
Examination distribution, similar to the traditional joint university entrance examination,
caters to senior technicalvocational high school
students. When students fail the recommendation
and screening assessment, they still have a last
chance to enter a school based on their entrance
examination score. Students cannot freely choose
the school or the major that they are interested in
or like. They are allocated seats by the school or
by the government test center depending on their
entrance examination score.
The admission application option is only for
general high school students who want to transfer
to study at a technicalvocational college, instead
of a general university. If the grade of an applicant is in the top 25 in a class of 50 students, then
they are qualied to apply for the school they like
or that they are interested in. The admission
application assessment also includes an oral test
and a personal record evaluation. The process
and documents prepared for the admission application are similar to those of the recommendation
and screening evaluation.
3. Conservation of resource theory
The COR theory may be applied as a theoretical model that explains the etiology of burnout

and the processes likely to accompany chronic

work-related stress (Schaufeli et al., 1993). COR
has thus been developed as a general stress theory
that helps delineate both why certain circumstances are stressful and the process of peoples
reactions to stressful circumstances (Hobfoll,
1988, 1989; Freedy and Hobfoll, 1995; Hobfoll
et al., 1995). A basis of the COR theory is that
individuals strive to obtain and maintain that
which they value, termed resources. When circumstances at work or otherwise threaten peoples ability to obtain or maintain resources,
stress ensues. Psychological stress often occurs
when there is the threat of signicant resource
loss, actual resource loss or signicant resource
gain. When considering the concept of burnout, it
must be stated that physical exhaustion or work
overload (Shirm, 1989) is likely to make people
feel insecure about their abilities to support the
motivational process. Therefore, the greater salience of loss postulated by COR theory is accentuated during periods of physical or psychological
overload. COR theory also predicts that chronic,
intermittent stress will cause resource loss and
eventually partially or fully depletes (Freedy and
Hobfoll, 1995). For instance, social relations are
seen as a resource to the extent that they provide
or facilitate the preservation of valued resources.
As an individuals social support wanes, psychological distress increases.
3.1. Social cognitive theory
The dierences in individual behavior in an
environmental setting, sometimes, are hard to
recognize and interpret. Many previous widely
cognitively based motivation theories associated
with expectancies often fail to specify a processoriented analysis of the factors inuencing the
relationship between human action and environment outcomes. However, SCT overcomes this
problem by clearly specifying factors by which
human action is determined (Stajkovic and
Luthans, 1998). Drawing from SCT, Bandura
and others (Bandura, 1977a, 1977b, 1986) have
advocated the concept of self-ecacy, which deals
with how individuals beliefs or condence in

H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

their capabilities to aect the environment and

control their actions in ways that produce the
desired outcomes (Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998).
Self-ecacy, therefore, plays a pivotal role in
SCT. SCT suggests that peoples behavior can be
predicted not only on the basis of contingent consequences, but also on the basis of personal selfecacy. For instance, a person with low self-ecacy doubts his or her capabilities to overcome
an uncertain situation and is also easily frustrated.
3.2. Student burnout
Burnout has been a popular topic of research
in psychology and associated disciplines in the
past three decades. Burnout is always more likely
when there is a major mismatch between the
nature of the job and the nature of the person
who does the job. The major factors of burnout
include work overload, lack of control, lack of
reward, lack of community, value conict, and
lack of fairness, which are obvious indications
that the person and the job are mismatched
(Maslach and Leiter, 1997). Burnout may lead to
mental distress in the form of anxiety, depression,
frustration, hostility or fear. Prior research has
shown that burnout can lead to lower commitment, higher turnover, absenteeism, reduced productivity, low morale, and lower human
consideration (Cordes and Dougherty, 1993;
Maslach and Pines, 1977; Maslach, 1978). Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion,
depersonalization, and diminished personal
accomplishment that usually occurs among
people helping professionals (Maslach and Pines,
1977; Maslach, 1978; Schwab and Iwanicki, 1982;
Jackson et al., 1986; Firth et al., 1985; Lahoz and
Mason, 1989; Golembiewski et al., 1995). Maslach and her colleagues (Maslach and Pines, 1977,
1978) synthesized the burnout literature, which
resulted in a conceptual denition. The term
burnout refers to a state of emotional exhaustion,
a tendency towards depersonalization, and a feeling of low personal accomplishment among
human service employees. Emotional exhaustion
is caused by excessive psychological and emotional demands made on people assisting pro-

287

fessionals who lack energy, and usually coexists

with feelings of frustration and tension. Depersonalization refers to treating people as objects;
employees display a detached, emotional callousness, and are insensitive and cynical toward their
customers or colleagues. Diminished personal
accomplishment occurs when a person displays a
tendency to evaluate him- or herself negatively, a
decline in feeling of job competence and an
increase in feelings of inecacy.
Some evidence exists to support the presence of
burnout in college students (Meier and Schmeck,
1985). Pines et al. (1981) examined and compared
burnout in nurses, counselors, educators, and
undergraduate students and found that students
ranked in the middle to upper levels of the burnout scale. This indicates that students have some
degree of burnout during their school learning
period. Based on prior research, the syndrome of
student burnout is similar to that in service
employees. Student burnout can lead to higher
absenteeism, lower motivation to do required
course work, higher percentage dropout and so
on (Meier and Schmeck, 1985; Ramist, 1981).
Hence, in this study, we dene student burnout
thus: students in the learning process, because of
course stress, course load or other psychological
factors, display a state of emotional exhaustion, a
tendency to depersonalization, and a feeling of
low personal accomplishment.
Although burnout has been a focus of educational concern and research on teachers for
decades, and has resulted in various strategies to
address the negative eects of burnout, fewer
empirical studies have focused on technical
vocational college student burnout. According to
SCT, emotional stimulation or self-ecacy inuences students perception of their own ability to
perform a function or task, as well as burnout.
Based on COR theory, workload and social support are the most important factors inuencing
burnout. Most previous research regarding college student burnout has focused on descriptive
and demographic analysis. Others have focused
on instruments that have been measured and
veried (Meier and Schmeck, 1985; Pines et al.,
1981). However, existing research displays that if
burnout results through expecting the environ-

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H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

ment to oer no valuable rewards or opportunities,

then students and their teachers may burn out
(Meier and Schmeck, 1985).
3.3. Academic achievement
Academic achievement problems have been
focal points for educators and researchers for
decades, because problems in the performance
and achievement of students school careers predict school dropout (Ekstrom et al., 1986) and
delinquent behaviors (Tremblay et al., 1992).
Much of the previous academic achievement
research has focused on the psychological mechanism (Fortier et al., 1995; Normandeau and
Guay, 1998), self-ecacy (Mitchell et al., 1994),
and family factors such as parental response to
grades are proven to contribute to academic
achievement (Grolnick and Slowiaczek, 1994;
Ginsburg and Bronstein, 1993). On the other
hand, autonomy-supporting family styles have
been found to be associated with higher academic
performance. Guay and Vallerand (1997) presented evidence that the use of autonomy-supportive techniques by teachers and school
administrators has been associated with academic
achievement. Hymel et al. (1996) also provided
evidence that peer support may also contribute to
childrens achievement because it has a profound
inuence on their day-to-day behavior in school.
For instance, Frentz et al. (1991) showed that students who were rejected by their peers had lower
academic achievement scores than more popular
students.
Intense emotional arousal was predicted to
interrupt the performance of work (Maslach,
1993). If students have serious emotional exhaustion, they will be emotionally fatigued, used up,
irritable, frustrated, or even worn out (Maslach
and Jackson, 1981), and they will have lower
academic performance. Cohen (1980), in his
research, clearly showed that a person with
higher stressors would show negative emotions
and low work performance. McCarthy et al.s
(1990) research showed that there is a negative
relationship between student burnout and academic
achievement.

3.4. Self-ecacy
In the past decade or so, researchers have utilized the self-ecacy theory to explain the burnout phenomenon (Schaufeli et al., 1993). Bandura
(1977a) adopted the SCT to explain the concept
of self-ecacy. Bandura (1977b) dened self-ecacy as peoples judgment of their capabilities to
organize and execute courses of action required
to attain designated types of performances. It is
recognized that self-ecacy is a strong predictor
of subsequent task-specic performance, and the
denitions of the construction ultimately refer to
what a person perceives their capabilities to be,
with regard to a specic task. Bandura (1977a)
found that self-ecacy positively correlates with
behavioral changes both vicariously and emotively. Once self-ecacy had been formulated and
established, it was shown to inuence behavioral
patterns as regards the magnitude of eort a performer would exert. Based on the concept of Bandura (1977a), ecacy expectations were
determinants in choosing activities. On the other
hand, self-ecacy is an important determinant
of task motivated behavior and subsequent
performance.
Self-ecacy belief has received increasing attention in educational research, primarily in studies
of academic motivation and self-regulation (Pintrich and Schunk, 1995). In this arena, self-ecacy researchers have focused on three areas. The
rst area has explored the link between ecacy
beliefs and college major and career choices (Lent
and Hackett, 1987). The second area suggests
that ecacy beliefs of teachers are related to their
instructional practices and to various student outcomes (Ashton and Webb, 1986). The third area
has reported that students self-ecacy beliefs are
correlated with their academic performances and
achievements (Multon et al., 1991; Pajares, 1996;
Schunk, 1989, 1991).
Otherwise, Bandura (1977b) has also identied
three major categories of experiences stimulated
by ecacy beliefs: (1) choice behavior: people
engage in tasks in which they feel competent and
condent and avoid those in which they do not;
(2) eort expenditure and persistence: how much
eort people will expend on an activity, how long

H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

they will persevere when confronted with obstacles, and how resilient they will prove in the face
of adverse situationsthe higher the sense of selfecacy, the greater the eort, persistence, and
resilience; and (3) thought patterns and emotional
reactions: ecacy beliefs also inuence the
amount of stress and anxiety individuals experience as they engage in a task and the level of
accomplishment they realize. Self-ecacy has been
shown to inuence both goal level and goal commitment (Locke et al., 1984). In sum, self-ecacy
inuences individual choices, goals, emotional
reactions, eort, coping, and persistence.
Describing the relationship between burnout and
physiological states, some previous researchers
proved the relationships between self-ecacy
and burnout (Cherniss, 1992, 1993; Hallsten,
1993; Hobfoll and Freedy, 1993). They proposed that people with no sense of mastery (i.e.
self-ecacy), who were easily burned out, usually lacked the capacity to adapt. Based on the
theory of self-ecacy and the previous research
cited above, we concluded that the greater the
self-ecacy, the lower the burnout.
Additionally, in the past decades, the concept
of self-ecacy has played a major role in consideration of task performance (Mitchell et al.,
1994). High self-ecacy helps create feelings of
serenity in approaching dicult tasks and activities. Conversely, people with low self-ecacy may
believe that things are tougher than they really
are, a belief that fosters stress, depression, and a
narrow vision of how best to solve a problem.
Patrikakous (1996) study showed that students
with high self-complacency have repeatedly been
associated with academic achievement. Several
previous researchers concluded that self-ecacy
was positively related to academic performance
(Campbell and Hackett, 1986; Mone et al., 1995;
Schoen and Winocur, 1988; Wood and Locke,
1987). Therefore, we concluded that the greater
the self-ecacy, the greater the academic achievement.
3.5. Social support
In COR, social support is one of the important
environmental factors in explaining the burnout

289

phenomenon (Jackson et al., 1986). When people

express the negative emotion of burnout, social
relationships are devastated (Maslach and Leiter,
1997). Social support is usually dened as the
existence or availability of people on whom we
can rely, people who let us know that they care
for, value, and love us (Sarason et al., 1983).
Social support has been identied as a resource
that enables individuals to cope with stress (Russell et al., 1987; House, 1981). Support from ones
co-workers and supervisors has frequently been
identied as both a preventive mechanism and a
remedy against burnout (Cherniss, 1980; Pines
and Maslach, 1978). Perceived adequacy of social
support has repeatedly been found to relate positively to mental and physical health (Hirsch,
1980; Barrera, 1981; Fiore et al., 1986). Previous
research suggested that increasing social support
to teachers might be a useful strategy for preventing teacher burnout (Russell et al., 1987). Schwab
and Iwanicki (1982) pointed out that burned out
teachers and students may inuence each other,
creating a downward spiral of decreasing satisfaction because students may possess the same feelings and expectancies of burnout as experienced
by their teachers (Schwab and Iwanicki, 1982).
However, no empirical evidence concerning the
impact of social support on burnout among technicalvocational students was found.
Additionally, Meier and Schmeck (1985)
pointed out that burnout students often lacked
concern and are bored by the routine of class.
Russell et al. (1987) demonstrated that people
who lacked social support were easily aected
by stress. Prior empirical research also found
that people with higher social support tend not
to have psychological or health problems, but
have more job satisfaction (Vaux et al., 1985;
Compas et al., 1986). Parental involvement,
teacher attitudes, and peer relationships do play
important roles in a students academic achievement (Keith and Keith, 1993; Peng and Lee,
1993; Grolnick and Slowiaczek, 1994; Ginsburg
and Bronstein, 1993; Guay and Vallerand, 1997;
Guay et al., 1999; Hymel et al., 1996). Hence,
we conclude that the greater the social support,
the lower the burnout, and the higher the academic achievement.

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H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

3.6. Course load

3.7. Fairness

In COR, workload is an important environmental factor to explain the burnout phenomenon (Jackson et al., 1986). From an individuals
perspective, workload means time and energy
(Maslach and Leiter, 1997). When individuals feel
that their own valued resources are threatened,
their physical and psychological conditions have
some degrees of change. Workload implies that if
a person, within the limited time, faces many
problems and cannot solve them, he/she will feel
role overload (Kahn et al., 1964). Load aects a
persons health and work quality (Kirmeyer and
Dougherty, 1988). Previous research argued that
load has a positive relationship with tobacco
addiction, cholesterol, excessive nervousness, and
heart rate (Cobb and Rose, 1973). Overload not
only aects the health of employees, but also
aects the way of doing tasks and employees
attitudes towards their work. Especially, overload
causes greater job dissatisfaction, poor work
quality, tension, anger, and a sense of failure
(Beehr et al., 1976; OConnell et al., 1976; Sales,
1970). Consequently, this concept was applied to
the students learning environment. When students perceive course overload, they experience
tension, a sense of failure, lower satisfaction, or
even lower academic performance. Hence, in this
study course load is dened thus: when students
in the learning process, because of limited time,
face many course problems cannot solved them,
they feel overload.
Most previous research regarding the inuence
of workload and burnout indicates a positive correlation. Additionally, prior research also found
that course load is the biggest factor of student
stress (Johnson, 1978; Villanova and Bownas,
1984). Hence, we apply this concept in the students learning environment. If students perceived
a heavy course load, they would have a high
burnout rate and low academic achievement.
Thus, we conclude that the higher the course
load, the higher the burnout and the lower the
academic achievement.

Equity theory and social-exchange theory are

usually used to explain the sense of fairness
among employees and the relationship between
attitude and behavior (Adams, 1965; Blau, 1964).
For instance, Adams (1965) pointed out that
when employees perceive that they do not receive
fair and just treatment from their employer, they
feel uncomfortable and consequently lower their
work performance. Moorman (1991) also applied
equity theory in his research and got a similar
result, which showed that when employees perceive that they are treated unfairly and unjustly in
their organization, then they automatically limit
or curtail their corporate behavior and responsibility. Social exchange theory also explains this
phenomenon as follows. When employees perceived that they were appreciated or recognized
by their managers, they displayed a more positive
response, which increases their job satisfaction
and lowers their turnover rate. Maslach and
Leiter (1997) synthesized the sources of burnout.
Lack of fairness is one of the important sources.
When the work environment showed transparency and respect, then it was considered fair.
This sense of fairness is one of the most important factors to invoke individual dedication and
devotion to the workplace. On the contrary, when
individuals perceive unfairness at their workplace,
they display low motivation and commitment to
their work. This sense of unfairness would be
apparent in the evaluation and promotion process. Consequently, we applied this concept to the
students learning environment. When students
perceive that they are in a transparent, just and
fair environment, they display greater emotional
stability and achieve better academic performance. However, if students perceive that they are
treated unfairly or with disrespect, they despise
school and avoid going to class, which causes
lower academic performance and emotional
depression, even leading to bad interpersonal
relationships (Finn and Rock, 1997).
Hence, we conclude that when the students perceive that they are treated fairly, they have lower
burnout and better academic achievement. If not,

H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

they have higher burnout and poor academic

accomplishment.
Based on the analysis of previous literature and
hypotheses generation, we also set out to test the
moderating eect of multiple entrance programs
including self-ecacy, social support, course load,
and fairness, on student burnout and academic
achievement. Students who enter school by means
of dierent entrance systems should have dierent
amplitudes of self-ecacy, perceptions of social
support, senses of course load and a sense of
fairness regarding academic achievement and
burnout.
The research framework is shown in Fig. 2.
The research hypotheses in this study are summarized as follows.
H1a. Multiple enrollment programs have a signicant impact on student burnout.
H1b. Multiple enrollment programs have a signicant impact on academic achievement.
H2a. Self-ecacy has a signicant negative eect
on student burnout.
H2b. Multiple enrollment programs exhibit a moderate eect on the relationship between self-ecacy
and student burnout.

291

H3a. Self-ecacy has a signicant positive eect

on academic achievement.
H3b. Multiple enrollment programs exhibit a moderate eect on self-ecacy and academic achievement.
H4a. Social support has a signicant negative
eect on student burnout.
H4b. Multiple enrollment programs exhibit a moderating eect on social support and student burnout.
H5a. Social support has a signicant positive eect
on academic achievement.
H5b. Multiple enrollment programs exhibit a moderating eect on social support and academic
achievement.
H6a. Course load has a signicant positive eect
on student burnout.
H6b. Multiple enrollment programs exhibit a moderating eect on course load and student burnout.
H7a. Course load has a signicant negative eect
on academic achievement.
H7b. Multiple enrollment programs exhibit a moderating eect on course load and academic achievement.

Fig. 2. Research model.

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H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

H8a. Fairness has a signicant negative eect on

student burnout.
H8b. Multiple enrollment programs exhibit a moderating eect on fairness and student burnout.
H9a. Fairness has a signicant positive eect on
academic achievement.
H9b. Multiple enrollment programs exhibit a moderating eect on fairness and academic achievement.
H10. Student burnout has a signicant negative
impact on academic achievement.

4. Methodology and results

4.1. Data collection and samples
The target samples for this study were freshmen in technicalvocational college, who had just
experienced the detrimental eects of examination
under the multiple enrollment programs in Taiwan. In order to avoid sampling bias between city
and rural schools, the target samples were stratied by area to include the north, center, south,
and east of Taiwan. One to three schools were
chosen as the sampling target, depending on the
density of schools in each area. Therefore, three
schools were chosen from the north and middle,
respectively; two schools from the south and east,
respectively. Totally, 10 public and private
schools were selected. This comes to at least one
public school in each area.
Prior to data collection, the researcher met
with 4- or 2-year vocational-technical junior or
senior college teachers privately to lobby their
voluntary help to arrange students participating
in this study. A questionnaire using the selfadministered technique to collect data for the variables described was developed and randomly
pilot tested with 50 freshmen. The pilot test
resulted in some revisions in the format and
wording of questions for clarity. The survey was
then mailed to 10 schools, 32 classes, and 1545
samples were administered. Participating schools
were located from the north to the far south and

the east of Taiwan: this was done to avoid sampling bias. Completed questionnaires were then
mailed back to a college address. 1034 responses
were useable, giving a response rate of approximately 66%. The useable samples included 525
male students and 509 female students
(n 1034). The number of respondents from 4year vocational-technical universities, 2-year
vocational-technical senior colleges and 2-year
vocational-technical junior colleges are 392, 159,
and 483, respectively. The number of respondents
through recommendation, application, and joint
examination are 294, 255, and 485, respectively.
The numbers of respondents among Management
Information System (MIS), Industrial Engineering and Management (IE), Business Administration (BA), Electronic Engineering (EE),
Mechanical Engineering (ME), Electronic Mechanical (EM), and Leisure Management (LM)
major students are 234, 152, 109, 179, 121, 117,
and 122, respectively.
4.2. Reliability and validity of the measurement
instrument
Scales were required for each of the constructs
in the research model. A review of literature was
undertaken to identify construct denitions and
existing measures. The wordings of previously
developed and validated instruments were modied slightly to t the present research. Each of
the measures used in the study is described below.
Burnout was dened by scores on three dimensions of the MBI called general burnout scale
(Maslash et al., 1991, 1993, 1996), namely the 5item emotional exhaustion subscale, 5-item depersonalization subscale, and 6-item diminished personal accomplishment subscale. Each item,
measured on a 7-point scale, was from 1 (never
experienced) to 7 (experienced daily) for each
subscale. Maslach and Jackson (1981) reported
acceptable internal consistency and validity for
each subscale. For the current sample, the
reliability analysis using Cronbachs coecient
alpha was quite acceptable for overall burnout
(a 0:82), emotional exhaustion (a 0:83),
depersonalization (a 0:85), and diminished personal accomplishment (a 0:74).

H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

Social support was measured by 28 items in

four subsections: peer support, teacher support,
family support, and general support, to estimate
the students own perceived degree of social support. This scale was originally a 23-item instrument (Vaux and Harison, 1986), to determine
whether a person believes he or she is loved by,
esteemed by, and involved with family, friends,
and others. An additional ve items of teacher
support were designed in this study to t in the
school environment. For the current sample,
Cronbachs coecient alpha was quite acceptable
for the overall social support (a 0:81).
Self-ecacy contained eight items to estimate
students ecacy level from 1 (never agree) to 7
(completely agree). These items were revised from
the Jones scale (Jones, 1986). On this scale, subjects were rated for general self-ecacy, not for a
specic domains self-ecacy, because the sources
of samples were students from dierent majors in
technicalvocational colleges. Cronbachs coefcient alpha was acceptable for self-ecacy
(a 0:77). Course load contained four items to
estimate a students course load level from 1
(never agree) to 7 (completely agree). These items
were revised from Caplans workload scale
(1975). Cronbachs coecient alpha was quite
acceptable for course load (a 0:84). Fairness
contained nine items to examine students perception of fairness in the school. These items were
revised from Greenbergs organizational justice
theory scale (Greenberg, 1987). Cronbachs coefcient alpha was quite acceptable for fairness
(a 0:83).
Academic achievement refers to the academic
performance of students at school. This study
adopted the denition of Brown et al. (1989) to
dene academic achievement. Academic achievement was measured by the total average score at
the end of the semester.
Based on the previous value of Cronbachs
coecient alpha in each scale, all are over 0.7
(Nunnally, 1978); hence, it is proved that these
scales are all quite trustworthy.
Discriminant validity was checked by means of
factor analysis (Kerlinger, 1986). The measurement model using exploratory factor analysis
(EFA) was assessed to check discriminant val-

293

Table 1
EFA of burnout
Components

% of variance Cumulative

Items
deleted

Emotional
exhaustion
Depersonalization
Diminished
accomplishment

19.796

19.796

None

19.362
15.860

39.158
55.018

None
None

idity. The steps of EFA were, in the beginning,

using principal component analysis to process
factors, then using varimax as orthogonal
rotation and an eigenvalue equal to 1 to get factor loading, which should be greater than 0.5
(Kaiser, 1958). If an item with factor loading values is not greater than 0.5, then the item should
be deleted and abandoned from further analysis.
The result of the burnout construct was displayed
in Table 1. Among them, no item related to
emotional exhausted, depersonalization and
diminished personal accomplishment had a loading of less than 0.5 and was deleted. The results
of each independent construct of social support,
fairness, course load and self-ecacy are displayed in Table 2. Six items related to social support, one item related to fairness, and one item
related to self-ecacy have a loading of less than
0.5 and were deleted to t the literature supported (each item factor loading >0.5).
4.3. Analytical procedures
Statistical methods used for the analysis
included the t-test, ANOVA, multivariate multiple
regression, and multiple regression analysis.
ANOVA was used to test the relationship between
student burnout and academic achievement.
Table 2
EFA of independent variables
Components

% of variance

Cumulative

Items
deleted

Social support
Fairness
Course load
Self-ecacy

20.375
13.060
11.470
7.284

20.375
33.0
51.189
56.070

6
1
0
1

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H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

Multivariate multiple regressions were used to

examine the direct and moderator relationships
between the response and predictor variables.
To illustrate the interactions, we followed techniques suggested by Cohen and Cohen (Cohen
and Cohen, 1983; Mclinley, 1987). This technique uses a compete regression equation to
estimate the slope for independent and dependent variables at representative values of moderator variables. Meanwhile, regression analysis
was used to examine the relationships between
student burnout and academic achievement. An
alpha level of 0.05 was used for all tests of signicance.
5. Results
Most of the respondents parental incomes fall
within the low-income family bracket, about 76%
of the total samples (under 370,000 NT$ and
between 370,000 and under 990,000 NT dollars
per year; the exchange rate of US$ and NT$ is
about 1:34.14). Parents with a primary school,
junior high and senior high school education
made up the bulk, with a high percentage of
about 89% of the total samples. Additionally, the
t-test was also used to examine the dierences
between student burnout and academic achievement under dierent types of enrollment programs using gender as a criterion. These data are
shown in Table 3. The strongest dierence was
between male and female students on the burnout
scale (F 15:215, P < 0:001 ), whereas there is no
signicance dierence between male and female
students on the academic achievement scale
(F 8:059 , P > 0:05 ). Male students have a
higher level of burnout than female students. This
Table 3
t-Test for male and female students in burnout and academic
achievement
Variables
Academic
achievement
Burnout

Mean

8.059

0.005

2.743

15.215

2.275

Female: 76.39
Male: 75.03
Female: 57.03
Male: 60.07

p< 0:001.

0.000

result is not consistent with previous research

(Pines et al., 1981; Ryerson and Marks, 1981;
Maslach and Jackson, 1981). Future studies are
necessary to nd out why male students have
higher burnout than female students.
ANOVA was used to examine the bivariate
relationships between student burnout and academic achievement under dierent types of enrollment programs. These data are shown in Table 4
and indicate that dierent enrollment programs
have signicant eect on academic achievement
(F 18:041 , P < 0:001 ) as well as student burnout (F 4:846 , P < 0:01 ). The results provide
support for hypotheses H1a and H1b. Namely,
students in dierent types of enrollment programs
are likely to have dierent degrees of student
burnout and academic achievement.
The multivariate multiple regression results of
Hypotheses H2aH9a for student burnout and
H2bH2b for academic achievement are presented in Tables 5 and 6 for the direct eect and
moderator eect. Multivariate Pillais F statistics
were signicant for moderator variables on student burnout and academic achievement. The
moderator eects of multiple enrollment programs on social support and perceived fairness
are only signicant for academic achievement,
but not on student burnout. The moderator
eects are not signicant on course load and selfecacy for both student burnout and academic
achievement under multiple enrollment programs.
The signicance of the interaction terms shows
that only two of the eight hypothesesthe moderating eects of H5b and H9bwere supported.
The direct eect of independent variables for academic achievement is signicant on fairness and
self-ecacy. All of the independent variables
except fairness are signicant regarding student
burnout.
Regression analysis is used to examine the relationships between student burnout and academic
achievement. The data are shown in Table 7 and
indicate that student burnout has a signicant
negative eect on academic achievement.
Summarizing the results as a whole, the ndings of this study provide partial support for
COR and SCT on student burnout and academic
achievement under multiple enrollment programs.

H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

295

Table 4
ANOVA for H1a and H1b
Variables

F-value

Ways of entrance vs. academic

achievement

18.041

Ways of entrance vs.

burnout

4.846

Schee

Means

0.000

Apply > recommend

Recommend: 74.99

0.008

Exam < recommend

Apply > exam
Apply < recommend

Apply: 79.06
Exam: 74.76
Recommend: 62.40

Exam > recommend

Apply < exam

Apply: 58.37
Exam: 59.12

p< 0:01.
p< 0:001.

Table 5
Multiple regression for student burnout
Dependent variable

Variables

Burnout (R2 0:161;

F 10:971; P 0:000)

Main eects
Way of entrance (WE)
Social support (SS)
Fairness (F)
Course load(CL)
Self-ecacy (SE)
Interactions
SE  WE
CL  WE
F  WE
SS  WE

SD

Beta

3.825
0.065
0.185
0.214
0.187

0.039
0.117
0.053
0.366
0.101

0.112
0.2330
0.945
8.144
2.005

0.911
0.020

0.345
0.000



0.045

0.405
0.390
0.383
0.132

0.219
0.080
0.371
0.279

0.920
0.583
1.222
0.974

0.358
0.560
0.222
0.330

p< 0:05.
p< 0:001.

Table 6
Multiple regression for academic achievement
Dependent variable

Variables

Academic achievement
(R2 0:110; F 7:553;
P 0:000)

Main eects
Way of entrance (WE)
Social support (SS)
Fairness(F)
Course load(CL)
Self-ecacy (SE)
Interactions
SE  WE
CL  WE
F  WE
SS  WE

p< 0:05.
p< 0:01.

SD

Beta

2.155
0.036
0.102
0.119
0.105

0.111
0.008
0.163
0.044
0.102

0.307
0.166
2.832
0.960
1.966

0.759
0.868
0.005


0.337
0.050

0.194
0.214
0.162
0.073

0.217
0.305
0.555
0.672

0.887
1.742
2.065
2.285

0.376
0.082
0.041

0.023

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H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

Table 7
Multiple regression for H10
Variables

SD

Beta

Constant
Burnout

1.079
0.18

0.070

72.260
2.153

0.000
0.032

Dependent: academic achievement; F: 4.634.

p< 0:05.

We concluded that these data generally partially

support our study of how independent variables
and multiple enrollment programs aect student
burnout and academic achievement separately.
6. Discussion and implications
Three research questions were posed at the outset of this study: (1) to examine student burnout
and academic achievement respectively under
these three types of multiple enrollment programs
in technicalvocational colleges. Meanwhile, (2)
this research also attempts to examine the moderating eect of multiple enrollment programs
among the inuencing (determining) factors for
burnout and academic achievement. Finally, (3)
does student burnout signicantly aect academic
achievement? These questions are addressed
below in light of the results of the data analyses.
6.1. Burnout and academic achievement under
multiple enrollment programs
The results in Table 4 suggest that student
burnout and academic achievement under multiple enrollment programs are all signicant
(P < 0:01 ). Based on the Schee test, students
who enter school via admission application have
the best academic achievement, students who
enter school via recommendations and screening
come next, and students who enter school via
examination distribution have the worst academic
achievement. However, students who enter school
via examination distribution have the highest student burnout, students who enter school via recommendations and screening come next, and
students who enter school via admission application are least likely to be burned out. From the
aforesaid descriptions, this result indicated that

type of school entrance does aect student burnout and academic achievement. The results
showed that students who entered by examination
distribution have the highest burnout and lowest
academic achievement, whereas students who
entered by admission application have the lowest
burnout and highest academic achievement. Students who entered by recommendation and
screening have medium burnout and academic
achievement.
Since the traditional entrance examination system has been a hotly debated issue for educators,
the public and parents for the past decade, the
results of this research conrm that the decits of
examination distribution (similar to the traditional joint entrance examination) aect student
burnout and academic achievement. This result
indicates that the transformation of the traditional joint entrance examination into multiple
enrollment programs is a right policy of the Ministry of Education. Students interest is a key
point of concern while choosing the major or
school. Students choosing the major they really
liked or were interested in did reduce burnout
and increase academic performance. Thus, this
result gives the Education Bureau or schools
some directions. In order to reduce student burnout and increase academic achievement, the Education Bureau should be more actively involved
in the designing and modifying the multiple
enrollment programs to replace the traditional
entrance examination. Schools or the Education
Bureau should reduce the quota of examination
distribution students and increase the number of
students applying directly, who show the lowest
student burnout and best academic achievement.
6.2. Direct and moderating eect of multiple
enrollment programs
As presented in Tables 5 and 6, the interaction
of multiple enrollment programs and independent
factors was partially signicant for academic
achievement but not at all for student burnout.
The direct eects of independent variables on student burnout and academic achievement are partial supported. The ndings of this study provide
partial support for COR and SCT regarding stu-

H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

dent burnout and academic achievement under

multiple enrollment programs. Course load has a
positive direct eect on student burnout. Social
support and self-ecacy have a negative direct
eect on student burnout. The results provided
further validation and replication of prior
research investigating burnout (Archer and Lamnin, 1986; Lee and Ashforth, 1996; Cherniss,
1993; Russell et al., 1987; Jackson et al., 1986).
Based on the said results, how to reduce students
course load, provide suitable social support to
students and raise students self-ecacy become
the critical points for school teachers and education bureau. What kind of factors caused students to feel that the course load was heavy?
Does it happen because of too many examinations, reports, reading assignments and so on?
Teachers should nd out problems to overcome
student burnout. Additionally, teachers should
also provide suitable social support such as verbal
encouragement to reduce student burnout during
their learning process. Based on Banduras
(1977a) concept, self-ecacy positively correlates
with thought pattern and emotional reactions.
Once self-ecacy had been formulated and established, it was found to inuence the behavioral
patterns of students connected to the amount of
stress or anxiety as they engage in a task. Therefore, teachers should try to increase students
sense of mastery to reduce student burnout.
Table 6 indicates that fairness and self-ecacy
have a positive direct eect on academic achievement. The results provided further conrmation
of prior research exploring academic achievement
(Finn and Rock, 1997; Campbell and Hackett,
1986; Mone et al., 1995; Schoen and Winocur,
1988; Wood and Locke, 1987). In sum, self-ecacy has a positive eect on academic achievement. Based on this result, fairness is positively
related to academic achievement; so schools
should provide an open and fair environment for
students to increase their academic achievement.
Teachers should treat every student fairly to
improve academic achievement.
In this study, the multiple enrollment programs
were also applied as a moderator to test the
relationship between independent variables and
dependent variables. The data partially failed to

297

support the moderator eect on independent variables and dependent variables. Only fairness and
social support have signicant impact on academic achievement with multiple enrollment programs as a moderator. Others are not supported
for student burnout. This result indicates that it is
not really clear whether factors aect student
burnout and academic achievement under multiple enrollment programs. This nding is not
consistent with arguments to the eect that the
multiple enrollment programs are the gatekeepers
for student burnout and academic achievement.
Further research is necessary to explore other factors to prove this relationship.
6.3. Student burnout and academic achievement
Table 7 reveals that student burnout has a
negative signicant eect on academic achievement. This result provides further validation and
replication of prior research investigating the
relationship of burnout with performance (Bandura, 1986). Previous studies have shown burnout
to be associated with performance (Motowidlo
et al., 1986; McCarthy et al., 1990). The data
from this study support this nding for a sample
of technicalvocational college students. Student
burnout was signicantly negatively related with
academic achievement (t 2:153 , P < 0:05 ).
This nding suggests that as students have higher
burnout they have lower academic achievement
or performance. As a consequence of this nding,
it is obvious that it is necessary to control student
burnout in order to improve student academic
achievement and learning motivation. In order to
improve student academic achievement, controlling student burnout becomes a critical point for
schools. Schools and teachers should carefully
plan and design courses, tests, or even career
planning to reduce student burnout, and therefore increase academic performance.
6.4. Limitations
Although the results provided full or partial
support for the hypotheses, three limitations
should be taken into consideration when interpreting the ndings. It is important to emphasize
that the data from this study were gathered at

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H.-J. Yang / International Journal of Educational Development 24 (2004) 283301

one point in time, which was a kind of snapshot

research that did not consider the feedback eect
of student burnout and academic achievement
over time. This research is categorized as a crosssectional survey research, and, we therefore cannot infer that our ndings are integrated. Future
research should try to avoid this important limitation and should focus on a longitudinal study
over time to get integrated data and reduce the
bias of the research. Secondly, we used a convenient, not a random, sample to select schools as
testing samples, which may cause sampling bias,
even though we try to avoid sampling bias
between city and rural schools. Thirdly, the
results of our study may have to be carefully
interpreted, since the sample was only restricted
to 4- and 2-year technicalvocational university/
junior or senior college students, who focus on
skill-oriented base training. The results probably
cannot be generalized to all higher school system
students, especially to general university students,
who focus more on theory-oriented base training.

are indeed relevant to student burnout. Consequently, the data only partially support the moderator eect on academic achievement in this
study. Further research is required to understand
the reasons for this unsupported result and to try
to nd other independent variables in the context
of similar studies.
Although multiple enrollment programs are a
hotly debated topics recently in Taiwan, this new
initiative is still changing. Till now, there has
been a scarcity of research on this issue, discussing the impact of multiple enrollment programs.
More future study is needed to follow up on the
development and results of this new system. This
paper represents only an early attempt to investigate the impact of multiple enrollment programs.
Experimental and longitudinal studies are
required to address this issue in future research
because it is insuciently to rely on a cross-sectional survey to interpret causality problems.
Acknowledgements

7. Conclusion
Overall, the pattern of reported results is partially consistent with those presented in other
published burnout studies. Multiple enrollment
programs did aect student burnout and academic achievement. This result is consistent with the
policy of the Ministry of Education, which has
been actively involved in designing the multiple
enrollment programs to reduce student stress and
to improve learning performance. This result provides some indications or implications for educational bureaus to set up education policies and
teaching strategies to increase student learning
motivation. Especially, the course plan and
design and teaching content arrangement can
match with students intrinsic and extrinsic
properties to reduce student burnout and educational resources waste.
In general, based on these results, environment
and psychological factors are fully or partially
linked to student burnout and academic achievement. Moreover, it is not clear whether these
particular environment and psychological factors

This work was supported by the National

Science Council of Taiwan, ROC, under Grant
No. NSC-90-2511-S-167-001.
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