Burnout, type A personality and locus of control in university students

113 Pages·2016·1.35 MB·English

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BURNOUT, TYPE A PERSONALITY AND LOCUS OF CONTROL IN UNIVERSITY
STUDENTS

by

CANDICE JENNIFER JONES

Minor Dissertation
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of
Magister Commercii
in
Industrial Psychology

Faculty of Management
UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG

Supervisor: Dr Brandon Morgan

2016
DECLARATION OF ADHERENCE: ETHICS IN RESEARCH

STATEMENT:

I Candice Jennifer Jones certify that the minor dissertation submitted by me for the degree
Master’s of Commerce (Industrial Psychology) at the University of Johannesburg, apart from
the help recognised, is my independent work and has not been submitted by me for a degree
at another university.

C. J. JONES

I
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the following individuals
who have made the completion of this research study possible.

First and foremost, to God, I am eternally grateful for the many blessings, guidance and
wisdom that you continue to provide for me. Thank you for giving me the strength and ability
to exceed beyond what I thought was possible, and for helping me to overcome the many
obstacles along my journey towards becoming a professional Industrial Psychologist.
Everything that I have achieved and accomplished is because of you. All the glory to you,
Lord Jesus.

Dr Morgan, my supervisor, for your knowledge and continuous guidance, support,
dedication, patience, understanding nature and hard work. I feel blessed to have had you as a
supervisor. I admire your expertise in your field of work and your work ethic. Thank you for
developing my research skills and for driving high quality work. I am truly grateful for the
opportunity to have worked with you, and thankful to you, as this dissertation would not have
been possible without you.

To the students who participated in my research study, an acknowledgement and grateful
thank you, for your time, effort and willingness to contribute towards my study.

Thank you to Professor Schaufeli, Professor Bryant and Dr Levenson for granting me
permission to use your research instruments in my study, without these instruments I would
not have been able to complete my research study.

To Ms Saccaggi, I am truly grateful for your assistance towards ensuring the high quality of
my research study.

I would also like to thank the Pay It Forward Trust Fund, for blessing me with the
opportunity to fulfil my calling.

Lastly, to my family Ralph, Jenny and Ryan Jones; partner, Tristan Keeley; and friend,
Stacey Fellingham - I am forever grateful for your prayers, support, encouragement, and
II
continuous love. Thank you for always believing in me and for pushing me forward in hard
times.

III
ABSTRACT

Burnout in university students has far reaching negative outcomes for both the student and
educational institution. The development of burnout is related to both environmental and
individual characteristics. The focus of this study is on the relationship between burnout and
two individual characteristics, namely global Type A personality and locus of control.
Theoretically both of these characteristics are expected to be related to burnout. Limited
research has, however, investigated the relationship among these two individual
characteristics and burnout with students in the context of South Africa. In order to determine
the relationship between burnout, Type A personality and locus of control, three scales (The
Maslach Burnout Inventory – Student Survey, Student Jenkins Activity Survey, and
Levenson’s Internal, Powerful Others, and Chance Locus of Control scale) were administered
to 387 university students enrolled at a South African local university.

The relationships between the variables were analysed using Pearson’s correlation
coefficients and multiple regression. The results demonstrated that locus of control had a
stronger relationship with burnout than did global Type A personality in university students.
In particular, statistically significant negative relationships were found between global Type
A personality and two of the burnout dimensions: cynicism and professional inefficacy. In
the presence of all the independent variables, global Type A personality was found to only
predict cynicism. Furthermore, the unique contribution of global Type A personality to
cynicism was small. Internal locus of control was found to demonstrate statistically
significant negative relationships with emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and professional
inefficacy. Powerful Others and Chance locus of control each demonstrated positive
relationships with the three burnout dimensions. Dominance analysis indicated that internal
locus of control (Internality) and Powerful Others demonstrated the largest relative
importance for predicting burnout in university students.

As a whole the results support extant literature and show that the association among
individual characteristics, namely global Type A personality and locus of control, and
burnout in the student context, is similar to the relationship that exists in the organisational
context. The current study’s findings indicate the importance of researching burnout in the
student context. The study also demonstrated that the individual factors of global Type A
IV
personality and locus of control are related to student burnout. Implications for research and
practice are presented.

Key words: student, burnout, personality, Type A, locus of control

V
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

DECLARATION OF ADHERENCE: ETHICS IN RESEARCH I
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II
ABSTRACT IV
LIST OF TABLES VI

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1 Rationale and problem statement 1
1.2 Research aims 5
1.3 Definition of key terms 5
1.3.1 Burnout 5
1.3.2 Type A personality 6
1.3.3 Locus of control 6
1.4 Content overview of the succeeding chapters 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction 8
2.2 The conceptualisation of burnout 8
2.2.1 The structure of burnout 8
2.2.2 The third dimension of burnout 9
2.2.3 Alternative conceptualisations of burnout 10
2.3 Burnout in university students 11
2.4 Process model of burnout 12
2.4.1 Environmental factors as antecedents of burnout 13
2.4.2 Development of burnout according to the JD-R model 15
2.4.3 Individual factors as antecedents of burnout 17
2.4.4 Costs of burnout 17
2.5 Type A personality and locus of control 18
2.5.1 Type A personality 18
2.5.1.1 Dimensionality of Type A personality 19
2.5.2 Type A personality in the organisational context 19
2.5.2.1 Positive work-related outcomes 19
2.5.2.2 Negative work-related outcomes 20
2.5.3 Type A personality in the university setting 21
2.5.3.1 Positive student outcomes 21
2.5.3.2 Negative student outcomes 21
2.5.4 Relationship between Type A personality and burnout 21
2.5.5 Locus of control 22
2.5.5.1 Dimensionality of locus of control 23
2.5.6 Locus of control in the organisational context 24
2.5.6.1 Positive work-related outcomes 24
2.5.6.2 Negative work-related outcomes 25
2.5.7 Locus of control in the university setting 26
2.5.7.1 Positive student outcomes 26
2.5.7.2 Negative student outcomes 26
2.5.8 Relationship between locus of control and burnout 27
2.5.9 Summary and content overview of the succeeding chapter 27

CHAPTER 3: METHOD

3.1 Introduction 29
3.2 Research design 29
3.3 Sample 29
3.4 Research procedure 32
3.5 Instruments 32
3.5.1 The Maslach Burnout Inventory – Student Survey (MBI-SS) 32
3.5.2 The short form of the Student Jenkins Activity Survey (SJAS) 33
3.5.3 The Internal, Powerful Others, and Chance (IPC) Locus of Control scale 34
3.6 Statistical analysis 35
3.7 Ethical considerations 37
3.8 Content overview of the succeeding chapter 37
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS

4.1 Introduction 38
4.2 Descriptive statistics 38
4.3 Reliability 39
4.4 Correlation coefficients 40
4.5 Multiple regression 41
4.5.1 Multiple regression for emotional exhaustion 41
4.5.2 Multiple regression for cynicism 42
4.5.3 Multiple regression for professional inefficacy 43
4.6 Content overview of the succeeding chapter 44

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

5.1 Introduction 45
5.2 Aims/objectives 45
5.3 Relationship between burnout and Type A personality 45
5.4 Relationship between burnout and locus of control 47
5.5 Implications, limitations, and recommendations 50
5.5.1 Theoretical and practical implications 50
5.5.2 Limitations and recommendations 51
5.6 Conclusion 53

REFERENCES 54

APPENDICES
Appendix A: Descriptive statistics of the items of each scale 93
Appendix B: Density plots, and beanplots of the MBI-SS, global Type A 95
personality, and Levenson’s IPC locus of control scales
Appendix C: Scatterplots and Loess non-parametric regression lines of the 99
variables in the study
Appendix D: Dominance analysis tables 100