Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji 08832320903218133
Journal of Education for Business
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A Measure of Burnout for Business Students
Daniel W. Law
To cite this article: Daniel W. Law (2010) A Measure of Burnout for Business Students, Journal
of Education for Business, 85:4, 195-202, DOI: 10.1080/08832320903218133
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Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:32
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 85: 195–202, 2010
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
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ISSN: 0883-2323
DOI: 10.1080/08832320903218133
A Measure of Burnout for Business Students
Daniel W. Law
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Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, USA
The author surveyed 163 business students representing all business majors from a major state
university. Participants completed a questionnaire utilizing a modified version of the Maslach
Burnout Inventory. The data were factor analyzed to assess its basic underlying structure, and
each burnout component was assessed for reliability. Results indicated that the 3-component
model of burnout generally holds for business students, and the components demonstrated
high internal consistency. Further, business students experienced extreme burnout levels prior
to final exams. Implications for educators and others are provided along with recommendations
for further research and application.
Keywords: burnout, business, students
Over a decade ago, Sax (1997) reported an increase in stress
in the health of university students nationwide. More recently, Adlaf, Gliksman, Demers, and Newton-Taylor (2001)
found psychological distress among university students to be
significantly higher than among general population groups.
The experiences associated with stress in college academics
can have short- and long-term negative consequences (Orem,
Petrac, & Bedwell, 2008), including not completing a degree
(Vaez, & Laflamme, 2008).
Research suggests that stress and its negative outcomes
may carry over from one time period to another, impacting
future well-being and efficacy (Law, Sweeney, & Summers,
2008; Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001; Sweeney & Summers, 2002). Relative to the present study, students enrolled
in business programs at universities who experience high and
persistent levels of stress in school may find themselves ill
prepared for the additional stressors found in the workforce.
A better understanding of stress in business students and
its potential carry-over effects to the workplace would have
broad implications for university faculty and administrators
and human resource managers in business.
Unfortunately, stress research in higher education has resulted in a number of inconsistencies regarding measures and
modeling and, consequently, may have hindered research applications. One particularly thorny issue is measuring stress
solely resulting from academic coursework and employment
Correspondence should be addressed to Daniel W. Law, Gonzaga University, School of Business Administration, 502 E. Boone Avenue, Spokane,
WA 99258-0009, USA. E-mail: law@jepson.gonzaga.edu
independent of other types of stress experienced by students
from relationship, financial, and family issues.
BURNOUT
A stress construct widely represented in the psychology, sociology, and organizational behavior research literatures is
job burnout (Ahola et al., 2006; Cordes & Dougherty, 1993;
Maslach & Jackson, 1986; Maslach et al., 2001; Maudgalya,
Wallace, Daraiseh, & Salem, 2006). Job burnout is a psychological stress syndrome marked by a prolonged negative
response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors at
work (Ahola et al., 2006; Maslach & Jackson, 1986; Maslach
et al., 2001). Unlike many other stress constructs, job burnout
uniquely captures stress resulting exclusively from job experiences. This characteristic qualifies job burnout as a potentially useful construct in assessing and researching stress in
university students. Yet, compared with the number of studies
undertaken in the workforce, the construct has only lightly
been addressed in university students.
One reason for the lack of research involving university
students and job burnout is that university students are in fact
preparing for jobs and are not as yet considered employed.
However, it is arguable that full-time student status in a business program can be regarded as an occupation by itself
due to the rigorous nature of the coursework. This may be
compounded for those students who work full- or part-time.
Similar to their counterparts in the workforce, business students are continually subject to assignments, deadlines, and
potentially long hours. These work stressors have been tied to
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D. W. LAW
job burnout (Garrosa, Moreno-Jimenez, Liang, & Gonzalez,
2008; Pines & Maslach, 1978; Sweeney & Summers, 2002);
thus, business students may be susceptible to burnout.
In the business workforce, a number of specific occupations are susceptible to high levels of burnout. Studies
have highlighted problematic burnout in public accountants
(Law et al., 2008; Sweeney & Summers, 2002), information
technology professionals (Moore, 2000), human service supervisors and managers (Lee & Ashforth, 1993), and salespersons (Babakus, Cravens, Johnston, & Moncrief, 1999).
Further, burnout is a cumulative condition (Maslach et al.,
2001) in which affected individuals, if continually exposed
to work stressors, find themselves more burned out as time
progresses. This suggests that business students experiencing
high burnout from their studies and school employment may
carry with them these negative effects to their employment
following graduation.
In turn, due to its chronic and intensely affective nature
(Gaines & Jermier, 1983), burnout carries with it only negative outcomes (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993). This is in contrast to some other stress constructs in which some stress is
potentially beneficial (Choo, 1986). Burned-out workers suffer from physical and mental problems as well as strained and
damaged relationships with coworkers and family members
(Cordes & Dougherty). Organizations are adversely affected
through lower productivity, absenteeism, and higher turnover
(Cordes & Dougherty). These unfortunate outcomes can lead
to significant financial costs for business firms (Maslach &
Leiter, 1997).
Excessive turnover translates to firms losing some of their
significant investment in human capital to other employers.
Also, reduced job performance and poor job preparation have
been linked with burnout (Fogarty, Singh, Rhoads, & Moore,
2000; Maslach & Jackson, 1985). Businesses may suffer
financially from this adverse outcome through lower or poor
productivity and employee lapses in due care.
Burnout and Business Students
A broader understanding of the burnout construct as it relates to business students may prove invaluable to university
and business constituents. Business faculty and university
administrators and counselors, armed with a solid understanding of the causes and probable outcomes of burnout in
their students, may be in a better position to help mitigate
high student burnout and potential negative outcomes such
as dropping out or poor academic performance. Business recruiters may be able to more effectively assess a potential
hire’s suitability to the rigors of the position being offered.
Finally, human resource personnel, equipped with an understanding of the potentially cumulative effects of burnout and
its adverse outcomes, may be able to develop effective skills
and tools to assist new employees in their transition from
school to the workforce.
PURPOSE
The purpose and scope of the present study is straightforward. First, as burnout studies involving university business
students in general have yet to appear in the literature, the
present study’s aim was to begin developing an appropriate
version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) modified
for use by business students (Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Second, this modified version was assessed as to its underlying
structure and reliability and then compared with the established MBI, and in the present article I make recommendations regarding methodological considerations for further
studies in this area. Finally, the article ends with a discussion
of how developing and utilizing a modified MBI may prove
useful to business faculty and administrators in helping students prevent and cope with burnout. This, in turn, may allow
graduating students to enter the workforce psychologically
better equipped for the rigors of business professions.
The MBI
The MBI has been the most well-accepted and validated
measure of burnout over the last few decades (Maslach et al.,
2001). Initially, it was developed for use primarily in fields in
which individuals spend considerable time in intense involvement with other people, such as nursing or social work (Ahola
et al., 2006; Maslach & Jackson, 1986; Maudgalya, Wallace,
Daraiseh, & Salem, 2006). Later, burnout was viewed more
broadly, and the MBI was utilized in other occupations, including by public accounting (e.g. Almer & Kaplan, 2002;
Sweeney & Summers, 2002) and information technology
professionals (Moore, 2000; Maudgalya et al.).
Relative to the present study, some researchers have modified the MBI-General Survey (GS) for use in studying university students. However, to allow for use with specific types
of students, researchers have modified the MBI’s wording.
For example, Balogun, Helgemoe, Pellegrini, and Hoeberlein
(1996) modified the MBI for physical therapy students, and
Guthrie et al. (1998) adapted the scale for medical students.
Schaufeli, Martinez, Pinto, Salanova, and Bakker (2002)
modified the MBI-GS for general use involving university
students, and some researchers studying students have since
utilized this instrument. However, other researchers continue
to rely on individually modified versions of the MBI to assess burnout among their student participants. Recently, Yang
and Farn (2005) modified the MBI to examine management
information systems students in a technical–vocational college, and Weckwerth and Flynn (2006) looked at burnout in
university students in general by using their own modified
version of the MBI. Clearly, at present, no one modified MBI
has emerged for use in examining burnout in students, either
generally or specific to type.
The MBI measures the construct following the widely
accepted three-component model of job burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal
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A MEASURE OF BURNOUT FOR BUSINESS STUDENTS
accomplishment (Ahola et al., 2006; Maslach et al., 2001;
Maudgalya et al., 2006). The core component of these is
emotional exhaustion—which represents a condition where
individuals no longer feel able to give of themselves because
their emotional resources have been depleted (Ahola et al.,
Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Depersonalization refers to the
negative, cynical attitudes and feelings about an individual’s
associates and clients (Ahola et al., Cordes & Dougherty,
1993). This callousness can lead individuals to feel that others deserve their problems. The third aspect of burnout, reduced personal accomplishment, refers to the tendency of
individuals to evaluate themselves negatively, especially in
regard to their work with others (Ahola et al., Maslach &
Jackson).
The process of developing a burnout instrument largely
resulted in the three-component model discussed previously.
Maslach and Jackson (1986) provided a history of this development as well as construct assessments from initial testing. Initially, the frequency and intensity of the items was
measured. However, after determining that frequency and
intensity were highly correlated, the researchers dropped
intensity—at present, only frequency responses are elicited.
Burnout was conceptualized as a continuous variable ranging
from low to moderate to high levels of experienced feelings.
Early development of the MBI resulted in an initial bank
of items consisting of 47 items; these were factor analyzed
using the principal factor method with Varimax rotation (all
factor analyses in developing the MBI utilized this method).
Ten factors accounted for over 75% of the variance. The
bank was then reduced to 25 items using a set of selection
criteria: a factor loading greater than 0.40 on only one factor,
a relatively low proportion of subjects circling the never
response, a high item–total correlation, and a large range
of participant responses. As this process was exploratory in
nature, a confirmatory analysis was undertaken on a new
sample. The results were very similar, so the two samples
were combined for further analysis.
Further factor analysis on the combined data sets yielded
a four-factor solution. Three of these factors had eigenvalues greater than unity and, as a result, became subscales of
burnout. In terms of generalizability, this three-factor structure has been replicated many times using samples representing a wide variety of professions in separate studies.
Twenty-two items remained in the version of the instrument
measuring the three components of burnout—emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Respondents were asked to indicate the frequency
of work-related feelings. Responses were limited to a 7-point
(and sometimes 6-point) Likert-type scale ranging from 1
(never) to 7 (every day).
Nine and five items loaded on the emotional exhaustion
and depersonalization subscales, respectively. There was a
moderate correlation between these two subscales. However,
the subscale of reduced personal accomplishment was independent of the other two subscales and consisted of eight
197
items. Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) initial testing yielded
good estimates of internal consistency for the three components (Nunnally, 1978); reliability estimates using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha were.90 for emotional exhaustion,
.79 for depersonalization, and.71 for reduced personal accomplishment.
METHOD
Participants
For the present study, participants consisted of 196 respondents from three introductory accounting classes at a large
state university. These courses were required for all business majors (e.g., accounting, business management, finance,
marketing, management information systems), and the participants verified this mix through listing their intended major
on the questionnaire. Demographically, almost all students
were between 19 and 21 years of age and of sophomore standing in college. Approximately 57% of the students were men.
The participating university’s institutional review board approved this human-participant study.
Daniel W. Law, an instructor for one of the classes, administered the instrument to his class, and two other instructors administered the instrument to their respective classes.
Law asked students to fill out the questionnaire to assist
him on a project. Students were informed that their participation was strictly voluntary (no grade implications) and
completely anonymous. Students were asked to read the instructions carefully and were also informed of the rules of
implied consent. Other than these statements, nothing else
was said concerning the nature of the study (e.g., no mention
of burnout). The other instructors administering the questionnaire followed this identical procedure, with the exception
that they mentioned that the survey was part of a colleague’s
project.
All three classes participated in the survey on the same
day—a lecture day right before the end of the semester (final
exams). This day was chosen specifically as a possible peak
period in student burnout and, consequently, may provide
the most salient burnout data. Thirty-three of the responses
were deemed unusable for factor analysis because they were
missing responses to one or more of the burnout items; the
elimination of these resulted in a total sample of 163 usable
responses. Response bias was not a concern as virtually all
students participated.
Measure
A modified version of the MBI-Humans Services Survey
(MBI-HSS; Maslach & Jackson, 1988) was developed to
assess burnout of university business students. This modification has been approved by the copyright owner of the
MBI-HSS. The copyright owners, CPP, strictly limited reproduction of the items (original or modified) in research
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D. W. LAW
studies. However, only two modifications were deemed
necessary. First, instead of using exclusively the terms people
and recipients, the term associate was occasionally used to
refer to all individuals with whom a respondent may have a
working relationship. The instructions for the modified survey clearly defined associates as it was defined in the present
study. Second, instead of referring to when a job started, the
questionnaire referred to when the school year started.
In addition, as some students have a part- or full-time
job in addition to their studies, the instrument referred to
school/work and not just one or the other. A student may not
be able to successfully separate the two activities in relation
to burnout because both activities involve specific tasks, time
constraint issues, and superiors.
As mentioned, the MBI-HSS was a proprietary instrument, and CPP strictly limited the use and reproduction of
original and modified items. The instrument may not be reproduced in any form in a published study. However, in an effort to assist researchers who utilize or modify the instrument
and then publish their results, CPP has generated an overview
of the instrument and sample items from each burnout component. Separate permission has been granted to include this
overview in the present study (see Appendix).
Analysis
For comparability purposes, the same factor analysis methods employed by Maslach and Jackson (1986) were used to
analyze the data (principal factor method with Varimax rotation). Also, similar to Maslach and Jackson’s analyses, items
were deemed to have loaded on a particular factor when factor
loadings exceeded 0.40 (Johnson, 1998). The item numbers
for this modified MBI were identical to those for the original
MBI-HSS. This facilitated an easy comparison between the
two versions as to which items loaded on which factors.
Cronbach’s coefficient alphas were also computed for the
three subscales in this study to assess reliability for the modified questionnaire and for comparison purposes with similar
estimates computed in Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) study.
RESULTS
Table 1 presents factor loadings for the modified MBI for
college accounting students.
A comparison of these loadings with those of Maslach
and Jackson’s (1986) MBI-HSS loadings revealed some interesting similarities. Essentially, most of the items loading
on the subscale for reduced personal accomplishment in the
original analysis also loaded on this subscale for the present
study.
Similarly, most of the items loading on the emotional
exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment subscales
in Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) study loaded similarly in
the present study. However, a few notable exceptions were
TABLE 1
Factor Analysis of the Maslach Burnout
Inventory–Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS),
Modified for Use With University Business Students
(Varimax Orthogonal Rotation)
Item
8
2
1
13
3
20
14
11
16
6
5
15
22
10
17
7
4
21
12
9
19
18
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
87
77
76
69
65
63
60
57
5
14
13
26
29
32
4
−9
13
−3
−31
0
6
3
14
10
15
17
21
34
8
41
72
65
63
56
53
48
−25
−9
9
−1
−11
30
−8
11
12
7
2
0
3
−4
−3
−17
−23
−5
13
2
0
0
72
71
61
54
44
41
40
39
Note. To allow for ease of interpretation of factor values, each value
was multiplied by 100. Item numbers correspond with similar items found
in the MBI-HSS, a proprietary instrument available from CPP. Factors
1, 2, and 3 represent emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced
personal accomplishment, respectively. Items in bold represent those values
exceeding 40.
present. Item 11 loaded originally only on depersonalization; in the present study, it loaded on emotional exhaustion
and depersonalization, with the highest loading on emotional
exhaustion. This item referred to emotional hardening and
appeared to reflect elements from emotional exhaustion and
depersonalization (hardening).
Further, Items 6 and 16 both loaded on depersonalization in the present study, whereas these loaded on emotional
exhaustion in Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) study. Both of
these items referred to working with people. A key difference between the sample used by Maslach and Jackson and
the present sample of business students may provide the reason for these two items loading on depersonalization in the
present study and not on emotional exhaustion. As previously stated, the MBI-HSS was developed to assess burnout
in people–work professions, and the sample used by Maslach
and Jackson largely consisted of individuals working in occupations in which people interaction was very high. Conversely, university business students in the present sample
might or might not have been required to deal with people
and their problems at such an extreme level. This sample
difference may be significant and resulted in these two items
loading on different subscales in the present sample.
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A MEASURE OF BURNOUT FOR BUSINESS STUDENTS
Further, as was previously mentioned, the two subscales in
question (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization) have
been shown in other studies to be moderately correlated. One
possible result of this correlation may be that some items
loaded higher on one subscale for one sample but may in
another sample load higher on the other subscale.
Overall, the results of the present study’s factor analyses
were quite similar to those of Maslach and Jackson (1986)
in their analyses. Other possible reasons for the differences
noted might be differences related to sample makeup, sample
size, wording modifications, and timing of data collection.
Results from the present study support Maslach and Jackson’s assertion that burnout is a multidimensional construct,
whether for professionals or business students.
Cronbach’s coefficient alphas were computed using the
actual items loading on the subscales in the present study,
not the items that loaded in the original MBI-HSS. Although
two items failed to load (> .40) on the reduced personal
accomplishment scale (items 18 and 19), they were included
in the computation of alpha, because their loadings were
very close to significance (.40 and .39), respectively. These
estimates of internal consistency compared very favorably to
Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) estimates. Specifically, in the
present study, for emotional exhaustion, depersonalization,
and reduced personal accomplishment, the alphas were .88,
.78, and .74, respectively. Recall that Maslach and Jackson’s
reliability estimates for the same three subscales were .90,
.79, and .71, respectively. Modifying the MBI-HSS for use in
university business students do not appear to have negatively
affected the internal consistency of the three components.
DISCUSSION
Although the primary purpose of the present study was to
begin the development and assessment of a modified MBI
for measuring burnout in business students, an examination
of the level of burnout measured in these students may provide insight to the possible pervasiveness of the problem.
Although burnout is three-component construct, emotional
exhaustion is a necessary condition for burnout, representing
the core component and catalyst for entire burnout process
(Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Following the methodology of
other studies (e.g., Leiter & Durup, 1996; Law et al., 2008;
Moore, 2000) in which emotional exhaustion was assessed in
isolation to better understand burnout, the present study assessed the level of burnout in business students by computing
the mean emotional exhaustion score.
The mean emotional exhaustion score computed for the
sample of university business students was 3.79—a very high
score (SD = 1.17). Recall that students completed the selfreport questionnaire during the week prior to final exams—a
period of high demands and potentially high stress. Age
might also have impacted this mean score, as emotional exhaustion has been shown to be higher in younger workers
199
(Cordes & Dougherty, 1993). This score is, nevertheless, very
high when compared with emotional exhaustion scores measured in other professions in which exhaustion and burnout
are purported to be high. For example, emotional exhaustion scores for individuals employed in social services and
mental health were 2.37 (SD = 1.17) and 1.88 (SD = 0.99),
respectively (Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Even the emotional
exhaustion score (2.97; SD = 0.98) for public accountants
(Sweeney & Summers, 2002) measured during the height of
the traditional busy season—in which work demands were at
their peak—was significantly lower than the level measured
in university business students in the present study.
It is most likely that emotional exhaustion levels in these
students drop off markedly after the term ends, due to the
easing of academic demands. However, emotional exhaustion is a cumulative condition in which effects are expected
to build over time. This suggests that many students may
carry its effects from one academic term to the next and perhaps into the workforce. Indeed, emotional exhaustion levels
in public accountants outside the traditional busy season remained at very high levels (Law et al., 2008; Sweeney &
Summers, 2002). The extreme level of emotional exhaustion
found in university business students in the present sample
provides sufficient motivation for further burnout study in
this area.
The scope of the present study was purposely narrow.
As the MBI has yet to receive substantial attention in the
business school setting, an examination of its factor structure
and reliability is a necessary step to determine whether a
modified scale is suitable for use in such a setting and whether
any additional modifications are required. The present study
was promising in that only very limited modifications to the
MBI appeared necessary to enable it to be an effective and
reliable tool to measure the construct in business students.
The study was limited to three sophomore accounting
classes required for all business majors at one university.
Therefore, generalizability to all university business students
was a potential limitation. Also, in the present study, no attempt was made to examine alternative wordings of the items
to test for higher factor loadings and better reliability. Future
researchers that employ other word choices may improve the
items’ construct validity and internal consistency.
Studying burnout in the university business student population may prove very useful in examining possible unique
antecedents (e.g., part-time employment, number of credit
hours) or outcomes (e.g., dropping out, persistence into the
workforce) relative to these students. Utilizing another modified MBI, Law (2007) found that the level of coursework
involvement was positively correlated with the level of emotional exhaustion in a sample of accounting students. Further
research in this area may shed light on what business faculty
and university administrators can do to help students avoid
high burnout and its costly outcomes. In turn, human resource and management personnel in the workforce may be
able to better identify job candidates especially susceptible
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D. W. LAW
to job burnout and also help mitigate the substantial human
and financial costs of burnout to business by helping students
transition from school to the rigors of the business world.
Future researchers in this area should concentrate on replicating the results with larger and more diverse samples. To
gain further practical application, studies employing a longitudinal design would be very useful in the future. For example, measuring burnout in university business students over
their academic careers and into their professional careers
would provide meaningful data about causation and persistence of burnout.
Such a longitudinal study may assist business faculty and
administrators to design or modify programs to assist students in the prevention and coping with burnout and its
symptoms. A recent longitudinal study examining college
freshmen and some negative psychological and physical outcomes of burnout (but not burnout itself) concluded that students experienced increased negative outcomes during their
first year (Pritchard, Wilson, & Yamnitz, 2007). The authors
recommended that administrators proactively address these
issues by offering (or requiring) workshops for new students
dealing with how to cope with stresses associated with student life.
Similarly, business administrators and faculty should design and require coping workshops as a prerequisite to admission. Many business schools already require an orientation
seminar, in which such workshops should be offered. Further, peer groups or peer-advising clubs exist within many
business schools, and these could be directed and counseled
to assist students in preventing and coping with burnout.
Involving business school peer groups in the efforts to prevent and cope with burnout may carry a dual benefit. Results
from research suggest that student participation in cocurricular activities results in higher levels of engagement—the
positive antithesis of burnout (Law, 2007; Maslach et al.,
2001). Business school faculty and administrators, by promoting and supporting cocurricular activities (e.g., business
clubs, networking events), can help students avoid and deal
with burnout by better engaging them in positive activities
outside their regular studies. The effectiveness of these and
other programs could be assessed through longitudinal studies employing a modified MBI for business students, and necessary modifications could be made to improve their saliency.
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burnout: Toward an integrated model. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14, 3–20.
Leiter, M. P., & Durup, J. M. (1996). Work, home, and inbetween: A longitudinal study of spillover. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 32,
29–47.
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1985). The role of sex and family variables
in burnout. Sex Roles, 12, 837–851.
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1986). Maslach burnout inventory manual.
Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1988). Maslach burnout inventory—Human
services survey. Menlo Park, CA: CPP.
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (1997). The truth about burnout. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W., & Leiter, M. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review
of Psychology, 52, 397–422.
Maudgalya, T., Wallace, S., Daraiseh, N., & Salem, S. (2006). Workplace
stress factors and ‘burnout’ among information technology professionals: A systematic review. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 7,
285–297.
Moore, J. (2000). One road to turnover: An examination of work exhaustion
in technology professionals. MIS Quarterly, 24(1), 141–168.
Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). New York: McGrawHill.
Orem, D. M., Petrac, D. C., & Bedwell, J. S. (2008). Chronic self-perceived
stress and set-shifting performance in undergraduate students. Stress: The
International Journal on the Biology of Stress, 11(1), 73–78.
Pines, A., & Maslach, C. (1978). Characteristics of staff burnout in mental
health settings. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 29, 233–237.
Pritchard, M. E., Wilson, G. S., & Yamnitz, B. (2007). What predicts adjustment among college students? A longitudinal panel study. Journal of
American College Health, 56, 15–21.
Sax, L. J. (1997). Health trends among college freshman. Journal of American College Health, 45, 252–262.
A MEASURE OF BURNOUT FOR BUSINESS STUDENTS
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Schaufeli, W. B., Martinez, I. M., Pinto, A. M., Salanova, M., & Bakker,
A. B. (2002). Burnout and engagement in university students: A crossnational study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33, 464–481.
Sweeney, J. T., & Summers, S. L. (2002). The effect of the busy season
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Accounting, 14, 223–245.
Vaez, M., & Laflamme, L. (2008). Experienced stress, psychological symptoms, self-rated health and academic achievement: A longitudinal study
201
of Swedish university students. Social Behavior and Personality, 36,
183–196.
Weckwerth, A. C., & Flynn, D. M. (2006). Effect of sex on perceived
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student burnout in a technical-vocational college. Computers in Human
Behavior, 21, 917–932.
202
D. W. LAW
APPENDIX
Sample Items for the Maslach Burnout Inventory–Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS)
by Christina Maslach and Susan E. Jackson
Directions: The purpose of this survey is to discover how various persons in the human services or helping professions view
their jobs and the people with whom they work closely. Because persons in a wide variety of occupations will answer this
survey, it uses the term “recipients” to refer to the people for whom you provide your service, care, treatment, or instruction.
When you answer this survey please think of these people as recipients of the service you provide, even though you may use
another term in your work.
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Please read each statement carefully and decide if you ever feel this way about your job. If you have never had this feeling,
write a “0” (zero) before the statement. If you have had this feeling, indicate how often you feel it by writing the number (from
1 to 6) that best describes how frequently you feel that way.
How Often:
0
Never
1
A few times a year
2
Once a month or less
3
A few times a month
4
Once a week
5
A few times a week
6
Every day
I. Depersonalization
5. I feel I treat some recipients as if they were impersonal objects.
II. Personal Accomplishment
9. I feel I’m positively influencing other people’s lives through my work.
III. Emotional Exhaustion
20. I feel like I’m at the end of my rope.
From the Maslach Burnout Inventory—Human Services Survey by Christina Maslach and Susan E. Jackson. Copyright 1988
by CPP, Inc. All rights reserved. Further reproduction is prohibited without the Publisher’s consent.
You may change the format of these items to fit your needs, but the wording may not be altered. Please do not present
these items to your readers as any kind of “mini-test,” but rather as an illustrative sample of items from this instrument.
We have provided these items as samples so that we may maintain control over which items appear in published media.
This avoids an entire instrument appearing at once or in segments which may be pieced together to form a working
instrument, protecting the validity and reliability of the test. Thank you for your cooperation. CPP, Inc., Licensing
Department.
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
A Measure of Burnout for Business Students
Daniel W. Law
To cite this article: Daniel W. Law (2010) A Measure of Burnout for Business Students, Journal
of Education for Business, 85:4, 195-202, DOI: 10.1080/08832320903218133
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832320903218133
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Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:32
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 85: 195–202, 2010
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Copyright
ISSN: 0883-2323
DOI: 10.1080/08832320903218133
A Measure of Burnout for Business Students
Daniel W. Law
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Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, USA
The author surveyed 163 business students representing all business majors from a major state
university. Participants completed a questionnaire utilizing a modified version of the Maslach
Burnout Inventory. The data were factor analyzed to assess its basic underlying structure, and
each burnout component was assessed for reliability. Results indicated that the 3-component
model of burnout generally holds for business students, and the components demonstrated
high internal consistency. Further, business students experienced extreme burnout levels prior
to final exams. Implications for educators and others are provided along with recommendations
for further research and application.
Keywords: burnout, business, students
Over a decade ago, Sax (1997) reported an increase in stress
in the health of university students nationwide. More recently, Adlaf, Gliksman, Demers, and Newton-Taylor (2001)
found psychological distress among university students to be
significantly higher than among general population groups.
The experiences associated with stress in college academics
can have short- and long-term negative consequences (Orem,
Petrac, & Bedwell, 2008), including not completing a degree
(Vaez, & Laflamme, 2008).
Research suggests that stress and its negative outcomes
may carry over from one time period to another, impacting
future well-being and efficacy (Law, Sweeney, & Summers,
2008; Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001; Sweeney & Summers, 2002). Relative to the present study, students enrolled
in business programs at universities who experience high and
persistent levels of stress in school may find themselves ill
prepared for the additional stressors found in the workforce.
A better understanding of stress in business students and
its potential carry-over effects to the workplace would have
broad implications for university faculty and administrators
and human resource managers in business.
Unfortunately, stress research in higher education has resulted in a number of inconsistencies regarding measures and
modeling and, consequently, may have hindered research applications. One particularly thorny issue is measuring stress
solely resulting from academic coursework and employment
Correspondence should be addressed to Daniel W. Law, Gonzaga University, School of Business Administration, 502 E. Boone Avenue, Spokane,
WA 99258-0009, USA. E-mail: law@jepson.gonzaga.edu
independent of other types of stress experienced by students
from relationship, financial, and family issues.
BURNOUT
A stress construct widely represented in the psychology, sociology, and organizational behavior research literatures is
job burnout (Ahola et al., 2006; Cordes & Dougherty, 1993;
Maslach & Jackson, 1986; Maslach et al., 2001; Maudgalya,
Wallace, Daraiseh, & Salem, 2006). Job burnout is a psychological stress syndrome marked by a prolonged negative
response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors at
work (Ahola et al., 2006; Maslach & Jackson, 1986; Maslach
et al., 2001). Unlike many other stress constructs, job burnout
uniquely captures stress resulting exclusively from job experiences. This characteristic qualifies job burnout as a potentially useful construct in assessing and researching stress in
university students. Yet, compared with the number of studies
undertaken in the workforce, the construct has only lightly
been addressed in university students.
One reason for the lack of research involving university
students and job burnout is that university students are in fact
preparing for jobs and are not as yet considered employed.
However, it is arguable that full-time student status in a business program can be regarded as an occupation by itself
due to the rigorous nature of the coursework. This may be
compounded for those students who work full- or part-time.
Similar to their counterparts in the workforce, business students are continually subject to assignments, deadlines, and
potentially long hours. These work stressors have been tied to
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D. W. LAW
job burnout (Garrosa, Moreno-Jimenez, Liang, & Gonzalez,
2008; Pines & Maslach, 1978; Sweeney & Summers, 2002);
thus, business students may be susceptible to burnout.
In the business workforce, a number of specific occupations are susceptible to high levels of burnout. Studies
have highlighted problematic burnout in public accountants
(Law et al., 2008; Sweeney & Summers, 2002), information
technology professionals (Moore, 2000), human service supervisors and managers (Lee & Ashforth, 1993), and salespersons (Babakus, Cravens, Johnston, & Moncrief, 1999).
Further, burnout is a cumulative condition (Maslach et al.,
2001) in which affected individuals, if continually exposed
to work stressors, find themselves more burned out as time
progresses. This suggests that business students experiencing
high burnout from their studies and school employment may
carry with them these negative effects to their employment
following graduation.
In turn, due to its chronic and intensely affective nature
(Gaines & Jermier, 1983), burnout carries with it only negative outcomes (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993). This is in contrast to some other stress constructs in which some stress is
potentially beneficial (Choo, 1986). Burned-out workers suffer from physical and mental problems as well as strained and
damaged relationships with coworkers and family members
(Cordes & Dougherty). Organizations are adversely affected
through lower productivity, absenteeism, and higher turnover
(Cordes & Dougherty). These unfortunate outcomes can lead
to significant financial costs for business firms (Maslach &
Leiter, 1997).
Excessive turnover translates to firms losing some of their
significant investment in human capital to other employers.
Also, reduced job performance and poor job preparation have
been linked with burnout (Fogarty, Singh, Rhoads, & Moore,
2000; Maslach & Jackson, 1985). Businesses may suffer
financially from this adverse outcome through lower or poor
productivity and employee lapses in due care.
Burnout and Business Students
A broader understanding of the burnout construct as it relates to business students may prove invaluable to university
and business constituents. Business faculty and university
administrators and counselors, armed with a solid understanding of the causes and probable outcomes of burnout in
their students, may be in a better position to help mitigate
high student burnout and potential negative outcomes such
as dropping out or poor academic performance. Business recruiters may be able to more effectively assess a potential
hire’s suitability to the rigors of the position being offered.
Finally, human resource personnel, equipped with an understanding of the potentially cumulative effects of burnout and
its adverse outcomes, may be able to develop effective skills
and tools to assist new employees in their transition from
school to the workforce.
PURPOSE
The purpose and scope of the present study is straightforward. First, as burnout studies involving university business
students in general have yet to appear in the literature, the
present study’s aim was to begin developing an appropriate
version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) modified
for use by business students (Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Second, this modified version was assessed as to its underlying
structure and reliability and then compared with the established MBI, and in the present article I make recommendations regarding methodological considerations for further
studies in this area. Finally, the article ends with a discussion
of how developing and utilizing a modified MBI may prove
useful to business faculty and administrators in helping students prevent and cope with burnout. This, in turn, may allow
graduating students to enter the workforce psychologically
better equipped for the rigors of business professions.
The MBI
The MBI has been the most well-accepted and validated
measure of burnout over the last few decades (Maslach et al.,
2001). Initially, it was developed for use primarily in fields in
which individuals spend considerable time in intense involvement with other people, such as nursing or social work (Ahola
et al., 2006; Maslach & Jackson, 1986; Maudgalya, Wallace,
Daraiseh, & Salem, 2006). Later, burnout was viewed more
broadly, and the MBI was utilized in other occupations, including by public accounting (e.g. Almer & Kaplan, 2002;
Sweeney & Summers, 2002) and information technology
professionals (Moore, 2000; Maudgalya et al.).
Relative to the present study, some researchers have modified the MBI-General Survey (GS) for use in studying university students. However, to allow for use with specific types
of students, researchers have modified the MBI’s wording.
For example, Balogun, Helgemoe, Pellegrini, and Hoeberlein
(1996) modified the MBI for physical therapy students, and
Guthrie et al. (1998) adapted the scale for medical students.
Schaufeli, Martinez, Pinto, Salanova, and Bakker (2002)
modified the MBI-GS for general use involving university
students, and some researchers studying students have since
utilized this instrument. However, other researchers continue
to rely on individually modified versions of the MBI to assess burnout among their student participants. Recently, Yang
and Farn (2005) modified the MBI to examine management
information systems students in a technical–vocational college, and Weckwerth and Flynn (2006) looked at burnout in
university students in general by using their own modified
version of the MBI. Clearly, at present, no one modified MBI
has emerged for use in examining burnout in students, either
generally or specific to type.
The MBI measures the construct following the widely
accepted three-component model of job burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal
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A MEASURE OF BURNOUT FOR BUSINESS STUDENTS
accomplishment (Ahola et al., 2006; Maslach et al., 2001;
Maudgalya et al., 2006). The core component of these is
emotional exhaustion—which represents a condition where
individuals no longer feel able to give of themselves because
their emotional resources have been depleted (Ahola et al.,
Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Depersonalization refers to the
negative, cynical attitudes and feelings about an individual’s
associates and clients (Ahola et al., Cordes & Dougherty,
1993). This callousness can lead individuals to feel that others deserve their problems. The third aspect of burnout, reduced personal accomplishment, refers to the tendency of
individuals to evaluate themselves negatively, especially in
regard to their work with others (Ahola et al., Maslach &
Jackson).
The process of developing a burnout instrument largely
resulted in the three-component model discussed previously.
Maslach and Jackson (1986) provided a history of this development as well as construct assessments from initial testing. Initially, the frequency and intensity of the items was
measured. However, after determining that frequency and
intensity were highly correlated, the researchers dropped
intensity—at present, only frequency responses are elicited.
Burnout was conceptualized as a continuous variable ranging
from low to moderate to high levels of experienced feelings.
Early development of the MBI resulted in an initial bank
of items consisting of 47 items; these were factor analyzed
using the principal factor method with Varimax rotation (all
factor analyses in developing the MBI utilized this method).
Ten factors accounted for over 75% of the variance. The
bank was then reduced to 25 items using a set of selection
criteria: a factor loading greater than 0.40 on only one factor,
a relatively low proportion of subjects circling the never
response, a high item–total correlation, and a large range
of participant responses. As this process was exploratory in
nature, a confirmatory analysis was undertaken on a new
sample. The results were very similar, so the two samples
were combined for further analysis.
Further factor analysis on the combined data sets yielded
a four-factor solution. Three of these factors had eigenvalues greater than unity and, as a result, became subscales of
burnout. In terms of generalizability, this three-factor structure has been replicated many times using samples representing a wide variety of professions in separate studies.
Twenty-two items remained in the version of the instrument
measuring the three components of burnout—emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Respondents were asked to indicate the frequency
of work-related feelings. Responses were limited to a 7-point
(and sometimes 6-point) Likert-type scale ranging from 1
(never) to 7 (every day).
Nine and five items loaded on the emotional exhaustion
and depersonalization subscales, respectively. There was a
moderate correlation between these two subscales. However,
the subscale of reduced personal accomplishment was independent of the other two subscales and consisted of eight
197
items. Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) initial testing yielded
good estimates of internal consistency for the three components (Nunnally, 1978); reliability estimates using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha were.90 for emotional exhaustion,
.79 for depersonalization, and.71 for reduced personal accomplishment.
METHOD
Participants
For the present study, participants consisted of 196 respondents from three introductory accounting classes at a large
state university. These courses were required for all business majors (e.g., accounting, business management, finance,
marketing, management information systems), and the participants verified this mix through listing their intended major
on the questionnaire. Demographically, almost all students
were between 19 and 21 years of age and of sophomore standing in college. Approximately 57% of the students were men.
The participating university’s institutional review board approved this human-participant study.
Daniel W. Law, an instructor for one of the classes, administered the instrument to his class, and two other instructors administered the instrument to their respective classes.
Law asked students to fill out the questionnaire to assist
him on a project. Students were informed that their participation was strictly voluntary (no grade implications) and
completely anonymous. Students were asked to read the instructions carefully and were also informed of the rules of
implied consent. Other than these statements, nothing else
was said concerning the nature of the study (e.g., no mention
of burnout). The other instructors administering the questionnaire followed this identical procedure, with the exception
that they mentioned that the survey was part of a colleague’s
project.
All three classes participated in the survey on the same
day—a lecture day right before the end of the semester (final
exams). This day was chosen specifically as a possible peak
period in student burnout and, consequently, may provide
the most salient burnout data. Thirty-three of the responses
were deemed unusable for factor analysis because they were
missing responses to one or more of the burnout items; the
elimination of these resulted in a total sample of 163 usable
responses. Response bias was not a concern as virtually all
students participated.
Measure
A modified version of the MBI-Humans Services Survey
(MBI-HSS; Maslach & Jackson, 1988) was developed to
assess burnout of university business students. This modification has been approved by the copyright owner of the
MBI-HSS. The copyright owners, CPP, strictly limited reproduction of the items (original or modified) in research
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198
D. W. LAW
studies. However, only two modifications were deemed
necessary. First, instead of using exclusively the terms people
and recipients, the term associate was occasionally used to
refer to all individuals with whom a respondent may have a
working relationship. The instructions for the modified survey clearly defined associates as it was defined in the present
study. Second, instead of referring to when a job started, the
questionnaire referred to when the school year started.
In addition, as some students have a part- or full-time
job in addition to their studies, the instrument referred to
school/work and not just one or the other. A student may not
be able to successfully separate the two activities in relation
to burnout because both activities involve specific tasks, time
constraint issues, and superiors.
As mentioned, the MBI-HSS was a proprietary instrument, and CPP strictly limited the use and reproduction of
original and modified items. The instrument may not be reproduced in any form in a published study. However, in an effort to assist researchers who utilize or modify the instrument
and then publish their results, CPP has generated an overview
of the instrument and sample items from each burnout component. Separate permission has been granted to include this
overview in the present study (see Appendix).
Analysis
For comparability purposes, the same factor analysis methods employed by Maslach and Jackson (1986) were used to
analyze the data (principal factor method with Varimax rotation). Also, similar to Maslach and Jackson’s analyses, items
were deemed to have loaded on a particular factor when factor
loadings exceeded 0.40 (Johnson, 1998). The item numbers
for this modified MBI were identical to those for the original
MBI-HSS. This facilitated an easy comparison between the
two versions as to which items loaded on which factors.
Cronbach’s coefficient alphas were also computed for the
three subscales in this study to assess reliability for the modified questionnaire and for comparison purposes with similar
estimates computed in Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) study.
RESULTS
Table 1 presents factor loadings for the modified MBI for
college accounting students.
A comparison of these loadings with those of Maslach
and Jackson’s (1986) MBI-HSS loadings revealed some interesting similarities. Essentially, most of the items loading
on the subscale for reduced personal accomplishment in the
original analysis also loaded on this subscale for the present
study.
Similarly, most of the items loading on the emotional
exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment subscales
in Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) study loaded similarly in
the present study. However, a few notable exceptions were
TABLE 1
Factor Analysis of the Maslach Burnout
Inventory–Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS),
Modified for Use With University Business Students
(Varimax Orthogonal Rotation)
Item
8
2
1
13
3
20
14
11
16
6
5
15
22
10
17
7
4
21
12
9
19
18
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
87
77
76
69
65
63
60
57
5
14
13
26
29
32
4
−9
13
−3
−31
0
6
3
14
10
15
17
21
34
8
41
72
65
63
56
53
48
−25
−9
9
−1
−11
30
−8
11
12
7
2
0
3
−4
−3
−17
−23
−5
13
2
0
0
72
71
61
54
44
41
40
39
Note. To allow for ease of interpretation of factor values, each value
was multiplied by 100. Item numbers correspond with similar items found
in the MBI-HSS, a proprietary instrument available from CPP. Factors
1, 2, and 3 represent emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced
personal accomplishment, respectively. Items in bold represent those values
exceeding 40.
present. Item 11 loaded originally only on depersonalization; in the present study, it loaded on emotional exhaustion
and depersonalization, with the highest loading on emotional
exhaustion. This item referred to emotional hardening and
appeared to reflect elements from emotional exhaustion and
depersonalization (hardening).
Further, Items 6 and 16 both loaded on depersonalization in the present study, whereas these loaded on emotional
exhaustion in Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) study. Both of
these items referred to working with people. A key difference between the sample used by Maslach and Jackson and
the present sample of business students may provide the reason for these two items loading on depersonalization in the
present study and not on emotional exhaustion. As previously stated, the MBI-HSS was developed to assess burnout
in people–work professions, and the sample used by Maslach
and Jackson largely consisted of individuals working in occupations in which people interaction was very high. Conversely, university business students in the present sample
might or might not have been required to deal with people
and their problems at such an extreme level. This sample
difference may be significant and resulted in these two items
loading on different subscales in the present sample.
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A MEASURE OF BURNOUT FOR BUSINESS STUDENTS
Further, as was previously mentioned, the two subscales in
question (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization) have
been shown in other studies to be moderately correlated. One
possible result of this correlation may be that some items
loaded higher on one subscale for one sample but may in
another sample load higher on the other subscale.
Overall, the results of the present study’s factor analyses
were quite similar to those of Maslach and Jackson (1986)
in their analyses. Other possible reasons for the differences
noted might be differences related to sample makeup, sample
size, wording modifications, and timing of data collection.
Results from the present study support Maslach and Jackson’s assertion that burnout is a multidimensional construct,
whether for professionals or business students.
Cronbach’s coefficient alphas were computed using the
actual items loading on the subscales in the present study,
not the items that loaded in the original MBI-HSS. Although
two items failed to load (> .40) on the reduced personal
accomplishment scale (items 18 and 19), they were included
in the computation of alpha, because their loadings were
very close to significance (.40 and .39), respectively. These
estimates of internal consistency compared very favorably to
Maslach and Jackson’s (1986) estimates. Specifically, in the
present study, for emotional exhaustion, depersonalization,
and reduced personal accomplishment, the alphas were .88,
.78, and .74, respectively. Recall that Maslach and Jackson’s
reliability estimates for the same three subscales were .90,
.79, and .71, respectively. Modifying the MBI-HSS for use in
university business students do not appear to have negatively
affected the internal consistency of the three components.
DISCUSSION
Although the primary purpose of the present study was to
begin the development and assessment of a modified MBI
for measuring burnout in business students, an examination
of the level of burnout measured in these students may provide insight to the possible pervasiveness of the problem.
Although burnout is three-component construct, emotional
exhaustion is a necessary condition for burnout, representing
the core component and catalyst for entire burnout process
(Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Following the methodology of
other studies (e.g., Leiter & Durup, 1996; Law et al., 2008;
Moore, 2000) in which emotional exhaustion was assessed in
isolation to better understand burnout, the present study assessed the level of burnout in business students by computing
the mean emotional exhaustion score.
The mean emotional exhaustion score computed for the
sample of university business students was 3.79—a very high
score (SD = 1.17). Recall that students completed the selfreport questionnaire during the week prior to final exams—a
period of high demands and potentially high stress. Age
might also have impacted this mean score, as emotional exhaustion has been shown to be higher in younger workers
199
(Cordes & Dougherty, 1993). This score is, nevertheless, very
high when compared with emotional exhaustion scores measured in other professions in which exhaustion and burnout
are purported to be high. For example, emotional exhaustion scores for individuals employed in social services and
mental health were 2.37 (SD = 1.17) and 1.88 (SD = 0.99),
respectively (Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Even the emotional
exhaustion score (2.97; SD = 0.98) for public accountants
(Sweeney & Summers, 2002) measured during the height of
the traditional busy season—in which work demands were at
their peak—was significantly lower than the level measured
in university business students in the present study.
It is most likely that emotional exhaustion levels in these
students drop off markedly after the term ends, due to the
easing of academic demands. However, emotional exhaustion is a cumulative condition in which effects are expected
to build over time. This suggests that many students may
carry its effects from one academic term to the next and perhaps into the workforce. Indeed, emotional exhaustion levels
in public accountants outside the traditional busy season remained at very high levels (Law et al., 2008; Sweeney &
Summers, 2002). The extreme level of emotional exhaustion
found in university business students in the present sample
provides sufficient motivation for further burnout study in
this area.
The scope of the present study was purposely narrow.
As the MBI has yet to receive substantial attention in the
business school setting, an examination of its factor structure
and reliability is a necessary step to determine whether a
modified scale is suitable for use in such a setting and whether
any additional modifications are required. The present study
was promising in that only very limited modifications to the
MBI appeared necessary to enable it to be an effective and
reliable tool to measure the construct in business students.
The study was limited to three sophomore accounting
classes required for all business majors at one university.
Therefore, generalizability to all university business students
was a potential limitation. Also, in the present study, no attempt was made to examine alternative wordings of the items
to test for higher factor loadings and better reliability. Future
researchers that employ other word choices may improve the
items’ construct validity and internal consistency.
Studying burnout in the university business student population may prove very useful in examining possible unique
antecedents (e.g., part-time employment, number of credit
hours) or outcomes (e.g., dropping out, persistence into the
workforce) relative to these students. Utilizing another modified MBI, Law (2007) found that the level of coursework
involvement was positively correlated with the level of emotional exhaustion in a sample of accounting students. Further
research in this area may shed light on what business faculty
and university administrators can do to help students avoid
high burnout and its costly outcomes. In turn, human resource and management personnel in the workforce may be
able to better identify job candidates especially susceptible
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D. W. LAW
to job burnout and also help mitigate the substantial human
and financial costs of burnout to business by helping students
transition from school to the rigors of the business world.
Future researchers in this area should concentrate on replicating the results with larger and more diverse samples. To
gain further practical application, studies employing a longitudinal design would be very useful in the future. For example, measuring burnout in university business students over
their academic careers and into their professional careers
would provide meaningful data about causation and persistence of burnout.
Such a longitudinal study may assist business faculty and
administrators to design or modify programs to assist students in the prevention and coping with burnout and its
symptoms. A recent longitudinal study examining college
freshmen and some negative psychological and physical outcomes of burnout (but not burnout itself) concluded that students experienced increased negative outcomes during their
first year (Pritchard, Wilson, & Yamnitz, 2007). The authors
recommended that administrators proactively address these
issues by offering (or requiring) workshops for new students
dealing with how to cope with stresses associated with student life.
Similarly, business administrators and faculty should design and require coping workshops as a prerequisite to admission. Many business schools already require an orientation
seminar, in which such workshops should be offered. Further, peer groups or peer-advising clubs exist within many
business schools, and these could be directed and counseled
to assist students in preventing and coping with burnout.
Involving business school peer groups in the efforts to prevent and cope with burnout may carry a dual benefit. Results
from research suggest that student participation in cocurricular activities results in higher levels of engagement—the
positive antithesis of burnout (Law, 2007; Maslach et al.,
2001). Business school faculty and administrators, by promoting and supporting cocurricular activities (e.g., business
clubs, networking events), can help students avoid and deal
with burnout by better engaging them in positive activities
outside their regular studies. The effectiveness of these and
other programs could be assessed through longitudinal studies employing a modified MBI for business students, and necessary modifications could be made to improve their saliency.
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A MEASURE OF BURNOUT FOR BUSINESS STUDENTS
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APPENDIX
Sample Items for the Maslach Burnout Inventory–Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS)
by Christina Maslach and Susan E. Jackson
Directions: The purpose of this survey is to discover how various persons in the human services or helping professions view
their jobs and the people with whom they work closely. Because persons in a wide variety of occupations will answer this
survey, it uses the term “recipients” to refer to the people for whom you provide your service, care, treatment, or instruction.
When you answer this survey please think of these people as recipients of the service you provide, even though you may use
another term in your work.
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Please read each statement carefully and decide if you ever feel this way about your job. If you have never had this feeling,
write a “0” (zero) before the statement. If you have had this feeling, indicate how often you feel it by writing the number (from
1 to 6) that best describes how frequently you feel that way.
How Often:
0
Never
1
A few times a year
2
Once a month or less
3
A few times a month
4
Once a week
5
A few times a week
6
Every day
I. Depersonalization
5. I feel I treat some recipients as if they were impersonal objects.
II. Personal Accomplishment
9. I feel I’m positively influencing other people’s lives through my work.
III. Emotional Exhaustion
20. I feel like I’m at the end of my rope.
From the Maslach Burnout Inventory—Human Services Survey by Christina Maslach and Susan E. Jackson. Copyright 1988
by CPP, Inc. All rights reserved. Further reproduction is prohibited without the Publisher’s consent.
You may change the format of these items to fit your needs, but the wording may not be altered. Please do not present
these items to your readers as any kind of “mini-test,” but rather as an illustrative sample of items from this instrument.
We have provided these items as samples so that we may maintain control over which items appear in published media.
This avoids an entire instrument appearing at once or in segments which may be pieced together to form a working
instrument, protecting the validity and reliability of the test. Thank you for your cooperation. CPP, Inc., Licensing
Department.