KURT PIANSAY

Academic Burnout: The Lived Experience of the Grade 12 Stem Students in Specialized
Subjects
Academic Burnout
Foreign Literature
According to the article by Wright (2021), anyone can feel burned out. Athletes can burn
out in sports. Employees can burn out at work. Medical students can burn out in medical
school. But kids who learn and think differently may be more susceptible to burnout in school
for several reasons; academic factors, emotional factors, and social factors. Academic stress
had always been a common experience for every student due to the pursuit of education
(Porwal & Kumar, 2015). Evidently, a high level of academic burnout and reduced academic
achievement have been found to exist among students. In Witwatersrand in South Africa, 527
university students aged between 18 to 27 revealed that students who experience academic
burnout perform poorly in academics. This is because they feel fatigued, used up, irritable,
frustrated, detached, and pessimistic about academic activities (Hwang,2020).
Furthermore, as stated in the article by Salgado and Oliveira (2021), the student ends up
facing academic life feeling disinterest and frustration, which has physical and emotional
manifestations that are often accompanied by evasive behaviors and symptoms that mirror
this discomfort. Some of these symptoms are identified: constant tiredness and fatigue; mental
exhaustion; lack of ability to nurture their personal relationships; social distancing; complex
mood states (such as anxiety, irritability, and, in some cases, mild depression); difficulty in being
focused or attentive during any task; weight loss and muscle spasms; hormonal and metabolic
disorders; allergies and migraines; and insomnia and abuse of psychotropic and narcotic
substances, alcohol or other drugs. Whereas, it has been discovered that burnout is
characterized, not only by the reduction of motivation and job satisfaction, but also by health
problems, family and social conflicts, and by the decrease in productivity of individuals who
suffer from it (Velasco,2020).
One of the known variables which can affect academic burnout is the quality of the
learning experience. Burnout among students refers to tiredness resulting from academic
demands. The quality of the learning experience implies students’ perceptions toward direct
and indirect inputs that they have received from school or university (Abarghuei & Hayati,
2015). Their article shows that academic burnout and all of its components had a significant
relationship with the quality of the learning experience. When the academic tasks are a lot
and the students do not have enough resources, they will experience higher levels of stress,
and their ability and motivation for doing these tasks will be declined.
Local Literature
According to Demir (2020), the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread anxiety among
people worldwide. In a study conducted by Santabarbara et al. (2021), the world is
experiencing a crisis due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Especially, health-related crises. The
transmission of the COVID-19 virus has threatened the physical, as well as mental well-being
of people worldwide. Results have found that 7.3% is the rate of anxiety disorders worldwide,
and it could be increased three times higher during the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant impact on people; most especially,
among students. This has resulted in numerous changes, particularly in the student’s learning
styles. Thus, in the midst of the pandemic, online learning has posed a significant challenge to
all levels of the educational system. This is because of the abrupt transition from face-to-face
learning to online classes. Hence, this required the students to adjust and adapt to a new
learning modality to which they were not accustomed. Academic burnout was one of the
most significant challenges that these students faced; it is due to the excessive amount of
academic tasks and pressure that they were subjected to. As a result, their experience with
academic burnout resulted in anxiety (Gomez et al., 2020).
In the present time, education is considered as the key to success. It has become one of
the essentials to have a prosperous and wealthy nation. Education is a stepping stone towards
any development. Thus, academic achievement has become one of those challenges that
students are facing. Academic achievement has become the standard for a student's ability,
their ability to enter college, and determines their careers and job in the near future. Due to
this reason, students experienced academic pressure in order to get good academic grades
(Mutua et al., 2020). According to the study conducted on 249 students in the Philippines, the
workload is correlated positively to exhaustion or burnout. Also, academic achievement
influences academic efficacy which can also lessen the chance of a student experiencing
exhaustion or burnout (Velasco, 2019). Additionally, resilience and academic burnout are
directly associated with each other. Results have found that most of the students from 605
respondents have experienced moderate levels of academic burnout (Tus et al., 2021).
The researchers included this to summarize the above-mentioned literature and studies.
This review includes books, articles, and other publications that covered the same subject
matter or other study concepts. The researchers' knowledge is concentrated on Academic
Burnout: The Lived Experience of the Grade 12 Stem Students in Specialized Subjects.
References:
Charkhabi, M., Azizi Abarghuei, M. & Hayati, D. The association of academic burnout with self-
efficacy and quality of learning experience among Iranian students. SpringerPlus 2, 677 (2013).
https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-677
American Research Journal of Humanities & Social Science (ARJHSS)E-ISSN: 2378-702X Volume-
05, Issue-02, pp-06-13 www.arjhss.com
Salgado, S.;Au-Yong-Oliveira, M. Student Burnout: A Case Study about a Portuguese Public
University. Educ. Sci. 2021, 11, 31. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11010031
International Journal of Education and Pedagogy eISSN: 2682-8464 | Vol. 3, No. 1, 93-111, 2021
http://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ijeap
Syprine Oyoo, Peter Mwaura, Theresia Kinai, Josephine Mutua, "Academic Burnout and
Academic Achievement among Secondary School Students in Kenya", Education Research
International, vol. 2020, Article ID 5347828, 6 pages, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/5347828
Velasco J.C. 2019. Millennials in the University: An Inquiry on Burnout among Filipino University
Students. Behavioral Sciences Department, De La Salle University, Manila 1004, Philippines.
Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 27(3), pp. 1 8 0 1 - 1 8 1 4.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335827943_Millennials_in_the_University_An_Inquir
y_on_Burnout_among_Filipino_University_Students
W o r l d H e a l t h O r g a n i z a t i o n. ( 2 0 1 9 ). https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-
burn-out-anoccupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases
Gomez/2020. Academic Burnout and Its Relationship on the Anxiety of Senior High School
Students Amidst the Online Learning Modalit
https://scimatic.org/storage/journals/11/pdfs/346.pdf