A Study on the Causes of Academic Burnout Among Vocational School Students and Strategies for Rebuilding Their Motivation to Learn

Abstract

To investigate the current status and causes of academic burnout among vocational college students, this study conducted an empirical investigation using a questionnaire survey. The research tools consisted of a self-developed “Vocational College Student Academic Burnout Scale” and an “Academic Burnout Causes Questionnaire.” The study sample comprised 205 students from S Vocational College in a certain city, and descriptive statistical analysis and difference analysis were performed using SPSS 25.0. The findings revealed that the overall mean score for academic burnout among vocational college students was 2.3773, indicating a slightly below-average level, with the “low sense of achievement” dimension standing out most prominently, with a mean score of 2.6300. Demographic difference analysis showed that there were no significant gender differences in academic burnout, but significant differences were observed across regions and grade levels: rural students exhibited significantly higher levels of burnout than urban students, and third-year students also exhibited significantly higher levels of burnout than students in the other two grade levels. The impact of these factors, ranked from strongest to weakest, is as follows: the student themselves, parents, teachers, the subject, and the school; the mean score for “the student themselves” was 2.9400. Based on these findings, this paper proposes strategies for rebuilding learning motivation across five dimensions—the student themselves, parents, teachers, the subject, and the school—thereby providing vocational colleges with scientifically sound and feasible strategies for addressing student learning burnout.