Developmental changes in school burnout: The importance of sleep and problematic Internet use

• Published in: Journal of adolescence (London, England.) Vol. 96; no. 5; pp. 1091 - 1101
• Main Authors: Vazsonyi, Alexander T., Javakhishvili, Magda, Lobo‐Dos‐Santos, Tiago A., Özdemir, Yalçın, Sağkal, Ali Serdar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-07-2024
• Subjects: Academic achievement; academic performance; Adolescents; Burnout; cross‐cultural; exhaustion; Internet; Longitudinal Studies; motivation; Sleep; exhaustion; cross‐cultural; academic achievement; academic performance; motivation
• ISSN: 0140-1971; 1095-9254; 1095-9254
• DOI: 10.1002/jad.12319

Introduction
School burnout remains a prevalent problem among adolescents; it is associated with low academic achievement and school dropout risk, in turn linked to a whole host of deleterious developmental outcomes. The current longitudinal study sought to better understand the developmental course of school burnout by testing whether poor sleep and problematic internet use each uniquely and additively explained the variance in school burnout over time.
Method
Data were collected four times over 18 months, 6 months apart from N = 405 adolescents, grades 9 to 11.
Results
Sleep quality, but not quantity, was significantly associated with the school burnout intercept (β = −0.29); no effects were found for the slope. Problematic internet use was also significantly associated with the intercept (β = .44), but not the slope. In a combined model, both sleep quality and problematic internet use significantly predicted the school burnout intercept. The slope was only predicted by age (β = −0.21).
Conclusions
The study found partial support for the hypotheses that both poor sleep quality and problematic internet use predicted school burnout, intercept only, not the rate of change. The evidence suggests that school burnout increased across high school; however, the rate of increase slowed with age. In contrast to some previous work, study findings highlight the importance of separately considering both poor sleep and problematic internet use in understanding the development of school burnout during adolescence.
N = 229