MEDIATING ROLE OF RESILIENCE AND OPTIMISM IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL SUPPORT AND ACADEMIC BURNOUT OF INTERMEDIATE STUDENTS

Abstract

The current study examined the impact of perceived social support on students' academic burnout, with resilience and optimism serving as serial mediators. We recruited 383 students using the Raosoft sample size calculator for Mansehra and Abbottabad and assessed academic burnout, perceived social support, resilience, and optimism using the Oldenburg Academic Burnout Inventory, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and resilience and optimism scales. We used an independent-samples t-test to compare the two groups and a serial mediation model in the PROCESS macro (Hayes). The results indicated that perceived social support negatively predicted students' academic burnout. Resilience and optimism individually did not mediate this association. However, the interaction-mediated effects of both resilience and optimism were significant. The study also examined differences by gender, family system, and educational sector and found no significant gender differences in academic burnout and perceived social support, while males scored significantly higher than females on resilience and optimism. Students from joint families reported higher perceived social support and resilience, while students from nuclear families reported significantly higher academic burnout. Students from private schools reported higher perceived social support and resilience than students from government schools. These findings contribute to understanding the impact of psychological capital, suggesting that interventions focused on social support and psychological capital, such as resilience and optimism, may help mitigate the negative effects of academic burnout.