Investigating the role of information processing style in students' academic burnout through the mediation of achievement goals of Islamic Azad University students, Qom branch

Abstract

Objective: The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the role of information processing style in students' academic burnout through the mediation of achievement goals in students of Islamic Azad University, Qom branch.

Method: This research was applied in terms of purpose and nature, and in terms of data collection, it was descriptive of the correlation type based on structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the research was made up of all the students of psychology and educational sciences of the Islamic Azad University of Qom in the academic year 2020-2021, and 440 people were selected as a sample through available sampling. To measure the variables of the research, the standard questionnaire of Pacini and Epstein's information processing style (1999), the standard questionnaire of educational burnout of Maslach (2002) and the standard questionnaire of the progress goals of Midgley et al. (2001) were used.

The validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by content and construct validity methods (confirmatory factor analysis) and the reliability coefficient was estimated and confirmed by Cronbach's alpha method and the combined reliability coefficient. Validity and reliability values for academic burnout questionnaire: RMSEA = 0.07 > 0.08, α = 0.89 and CR = 0.91, for achievement goals questionnaire RMSEA = 0.06 > 0.08, α = 0.79 and .72 CR = 0, and in the information processing style questionnaire, RMSEA = 0.06 > 0.08, α = 0.76 and 0.86, and CR = 0.91 was obtained for experimental processing style. Data analysis was done at two descriptive and inferential levels (structural equation model), which was implemented through SPSS 26, Lisrel 8.8 and smart pls software.

Findings: The results showed that between the variables of rationalistic information processing style and mastery goals (β=0.65), rationalistic information processing style and approach goals (β=0.14), experimental information processing style and approach goals (β=0.30 There was a positive and significant causal relationship between experimental information processing style and avoidance goals (β=0.29), and avoidance goals and academic burnout (β=0.15). And between the variables of rationalistic information processing style and avoidance goals (β=-0.14), mastery goals and academic burnout (β=-0.87), approach goals and academic burnout (β=-0.19), there is a significant negative relationship. There is. Only there was no significant relationship between the variable of experimental information processing style and the goals of mastery progress (β=0.09). The largest effect size was related to the rationalistic information processing style on mastery progress goals and mastery progress goals on academic burnout. The effect of experimental information processing style was also the second strongest effect in the hypothesized model by mediating the goals of an approach to academic burnout. Experiential information processing style, with the mediation of avoidant progress goals on academic burnout, ranked third in terms of relationship strength, and its effect was to increase burnout. In general, the research results showed that students' information processing style has an indirect effect on academic burnout by mediating their progress goals.

Conclusion: According to the findings of this research, it can be concluded that people with a rational processing style use more goals for the improvement of proficiency and suffer less academic burnout. Also, people with a rational processing style use approach progress goals and suffer less academic burnout, although the adoption of approach goals in these people is less than the adoption of mastery goals. On the other hand, experimental information processing style with the mediation of avoidant progress goals has an effect on increasing the level of academic burnout. Therefore, it is suggested to policy makers and university administrators to provide ways to teach rational processing style by holding training courses for teachers and students and by creating an environment Provide appropriate training to students to adopt the goals of proficiency improvement, in order to prevent academic burnout. It is also suggested to use people who have a rational processing style in selecting people for better productivity in the field of education or employment.

Keywords: rationality information processing style, experimentality information processing style, achievement goals, academic burnout, students of Islamic Azad University of Qom branch.