Construct Validation of the

Student Academic Burnout

2
Scale

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4
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Adonis P. David
Office of Student Affairs and Student Services
Philippine Normal University-Manila
 Theoretical Background
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• The proposed scale is anchored on the theory of

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Maslach (2001; 1997) which views burnout as

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a work-related disorder defined as a syndrome

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of emotional exhaustion, cynicism or
depersonalization, and reduced professional
efficacy.
 Rationale
• School can be considered as a workplace
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where students perform their duties and

responsibilities to pass and advance to the

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2
next educational level.

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• This endeavor aims to develop and validate
a measure of burnout among college
students in a school and academic-specific
context.
context
 THE HYPOTHESIZED COMPONENTS
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Exhaustion – physical and emotional fatigue resulting

from the demand of academic work.

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Cynicism - indifferent or a distal attitude toward

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academic work; losing interest in one’s work and not
seeing academic work as meaningful

Perceived Inadequacy – diminished feelings of

competence and achievement in one’s academic work
 SABS Prototype Form
COMPONENT SAMPLE ITEM
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EXHAUSTION Classroom activities

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make me tired.

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CYNICISM I have lost interest in
my academic work.
PERCEIVED I feel that I have failed
INADEQUACY to accomplish
anything significant in
my schoolwork
 Part 1:: INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT
A. Review of the Literature on Burnout and Survey of
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Existing Burnout Measures
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B. Development of the ABS Prototype Form consisting

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of 30 items.

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C. Expert Validation of the ABS Prototype Form

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D. Revision of Prototype Form (27-items)

E. Try-Out and Review of the Revised Prototype Form

(10 college students)

F. Preparation of Preliminary Form

 EXPERT VALIDATION
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Scale was reduced from 30 to 27 items.

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Items were revised to improve their relevance to the

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hypothesized components and academic burnout in

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general.

Items were revised to improve the sentence

construction and appropriateness for intended
respondents.
 SABS Preliminary Form
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The preliminary form consists of 27 items measuring
three components of school academic burnout: exhaustion from

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academic work (9), cynicism toward academic work (8), and

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perceived inadequacy in academic work (10). All the items are
rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7

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(always).
The scale was administered to 150 second-year and
third-year university students (Mean age = 17.94 years; M=38,
F=112 ).
 Preliminary Analysis and EFA
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The item-total correlation of the 27-item prelimary form
ranged from .01 to .76. Cronbach’s alpha was .92.

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Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was
.883.

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The scree plot suggested three factors.
Using principal component analysis with varimax
rotation, three factors accounted for 32.96% of the variance.

Factor loadings were considered if an item load in just

one factor (at least .40).
 Preliminary Analysis and EFA
0 0 1 1 0 0 1 FACTORS
0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0EIGENVALUES
1 0100 1011 % OF NO. OF
VARIANCE ITEMS

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Personal 8.90 32.96 10

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Inadequacy

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Exhaustion 2.67 11.57 7

Cynicism 1.85 13.42 7

 Item Analysis
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The item-total correlation of the 24-item scale ranged
from .29 to .68. Cronbach’s alpha was .91.

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Items which item-total correlation were below .45 were

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excluded resulting in the removal of 9 items.

The item-total correlation of the 15-item scale ranged

from .50 to .74. Cronbach’s alpha was .90.
 Part 2: Revised-SABS
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The revised-SABS was administered to 200 university
students (Mean age=18.03; M=42, F=158).

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The item-total correlation of the revised scale ranged from .

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03 to .68. Cronbach’s alpha was .89.

CFA using SEM was conducted to confirm the factor

loading and determine model fit of the 15-item SABS.

Three models were tested (one-factor, two-factor, and

three-factor model)
 CFA GOODNESS OF FIT SUMMARY
0 0 1 1 0 0MODEL
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0One-factor
01 0100 1011 Two-factor Three-Factor

Chi-Square 621.781 387.693 378.467

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p .00 .00 .00
CFI .63 .79
1 .80

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TLI .56 .75 .75
RMSEA .17 .13 .13
AIC 681.781 449.693 444.467
 MODEL MODIFICATION
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Model was modified by deleting items with:

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a. poor discriminant ability ( 4 items)

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b. low standardized regression weights (3 items)

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The deleted items were no longer used in subsequent
analyses.

The 3-factor, 8-item scale was tested using CFA.

 THREE-FACTOR MODEL 1
item2 e1
(9 ITEMS) 1

1
0011 0010 1010 1101 0001 0100 1011 INADEQUACY item5 e2

1
item10 e3

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2
1
1 item8 e4

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1
EXHAUSTION item12 e5

1
item14
CFI = .96 e6

TLI = .93
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RMSEA = .08 1 item3 e7

AIC = 83.317
CYNICISM

1
item6 e9
 ONE-FACTOR MODEL 1
item2 e1
(9 ITEMS)
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item3 e3
1
1
item5 e5

2
1

1
item6 e6

4
item8 e8
BURNOUT
1
item10 e10
CFI = .77
1
TLI = .68 item12 e12
RMSEA = .19
AIC = 197.283 1
item14 e14
 1
item2 e2

TWO-FACTOR MODEL 1
1 item3 e3
(9 ITEMS)
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INDIFFERENCE
1
item5 e5
1
item6 e6

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2
1
item10 e10

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1
e8 item8

CFI = .92
TLI = .89
RMSEA = .11 1
e12 item12 EXHAUSTION
AIC = 101.384

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e14 item14
 SECOND-ORDER THREE-FACTOR MODEL e10

(9 ITEMS) 1
item2
1
e1
1

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INADEQUACY item5 e2

1
item10 e3

2
e11

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1

1
1

4
item8 e4
EXHAUSTION
1
item12 e5
BURNOUT

CFI = .96 item14

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e6
TLI = .93 e12

RMSEA = .08 1
item3
1
e7
1
AIC = 77.732
CYNICISM

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item6 e9
 Item Analysis
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The item-total correlation of the 9-item scale ranged

from .43 to .66.

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The Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .83 (inadequacy

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=.78; exhaustion = .75; cynicism = .63).
Removal of any item does not result in an increase in
alpha level (for both total scale or any sub-domain).
All the nine (9) items were retained as part of the final
form of SABS.
 Convergent Validity
0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 The
1 1 0 1Maslach-Burnout
0001 0100 1011 Inventory-Student
Scale (MBI-
SS) is a 15-item instrument developed by Schaufeli, et al.
(2002) that measures school-related burnout among students

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across three dimensions: personal efficacy (the opposite of

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inadequacy), exhaustion, and cynicism.

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The MBI-SS was administered to 120 students from the
total sample of 200 students in Part 2 of the study. The
convergence of the burnout scores of 115 students in both the
MBI-SS and the 9-item SABS was determined using
correlation.
 Convergent Validity
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PERSONAL EXHAUSTION CYNICISM

EFFICACY

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Inadequacy -.677 .349 .344

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Exhaustion -.410 .632 .428

Cynicism -.630 .475 .538

 Conclusions and Recommendations
0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 11.
0 1The
1 0 1 0SABS
0 0 1 0 1is
0 0 a1 valid
0 1 1 and reliable instrument for
measuring academic burnout in college students.

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2. The SABS is best considered as a short measure of

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academic or school burnout.

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3. There is a need to confirm the factorial and
convergent validity of SABS in other samples, as well as to
establish the convergent, divergent, and predictive validity of
SABS with other measures of similar and related constructs.

4. It may be important to develop a longer, more

extensive version of SABS.