An investigation the factors affecting MIS student burnout in technical-vocational college

Abstract

Management information system (MIS) students are one of the most important information system (IS) employee sources. However, the determinants of student's burnout for MIS major students have received little attentions, despite their importance as indicator in predicting professional burnout and their working intention after their graduation and becoming IS professionals. This study explores the antecedents of student burnout for MIS major at technical-vocational college. Self-efficacy, social support, and sex-role were considered as antecedents to MIS student burnout. A questionnaire method by self-administered technique was used in this study. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the hypotheses. Statistical results displayed that MIS students with social support, self-efficacy and femininity have predictive power over student burnout. MIS students with social support and masculinity also have predictive power over self-efficacy.

Introduction

Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment that occur among people-helping professions who do people work (Firth, Micntee, Mckown, & Britton, 1985; Golembiewski, Sun, Lin, & Boudreau, 1995; Jackson, Schwab, & Schuler, 1986; Lahoz & Mason, 1989; Schwab & Iwanicki, 1982). On the other hand, burnout is a negative state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that is accompanied by a deep sense of failure from work. Maslach and Jackson, 1981, Maslach et al., 1996 developed the Maslach burnout inventory (MBI), to assess these three aspects of burnout, that is becoming widely used and has known psychometric properties (Maslach & Jackson, 1984). For each of these subscales, separate scores are provided for the frequency and intensity of feelings. These two dimensions have shown to be highly correlated when used with education related issues (Iwanicki & Schwab, 1981), hence, only the intensity dimension was assessed for this study.

Prior research indicated that college students have the middle to upper levels on burnout (Pines, Aronson, & Kafry, 1981). Existing research displays that if burnout results from expecting the environment to offer no valuable rewards or opportunities, then students and their teachers may burn out (Meier & Schmeck, 1985). Meier and Schmeck (1985) in their research they also pointed out that burnout students often lacked caring and are bored by the routine in classes. From prior research, the syndrome of student burnout is similar to people-helping employees. Student burnout can lead to higher absenteeism, lower motivation to do required course work, higher percentage drop out at college and so on (Ramist, 1981). Hence, in this study we define student burnout as “students in the learning process because of course stress, course load or other psychological factors cause a state of emotional exhaustion, a tendency of depersonalization, and a feeling of low personal accomplishment.”

Understanding the factors that influence people burnout has been a popular topic of psychological and neighboring disciplines' research in the last few decades. Organizations and researchers found that burned-out employees reported, for instance, an increase in turnover, absenteeism, reduction in productivity, and decrease in human consideration (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993). Researchers provided empirical evidence of the internal or external factors that influence employee burnout in people-helping professionals such as social workers, nurses, probation officers, ministers, policemen, librarians, and poverty lawyers (Cherniss, 1980; Firth et al., 1985; Maslach, 1982; Schaufeli, Maslach, & Marek, 1993; Shirom, 1989). Information system (IS) professional's burnout has been a problem area that has been investigated. Research evidence of Sethi et al. showed that burnout has related with IS professionals (Sethi, Barrier, & King, 1999). Management information system (MIS) students are one of the most important IS employee sources. If MIS students have a high burnout in their school learning periods, they are likely to be a high IS burnout professionals in their future working career. Gold, Bachelor, and Michael (1989) research supported that students' burnout in teacher-training programs was an indicator in predicting teacher burnout and their working proficiency after graduation. The study of Pines et al. (1981) compared the burnout between university students and people-helping professionals and found that students had higher burnout than people-helping professionals. We, thus, infer if MIS students have a high burnout during their school education and training, then after they graduated, they have a greater likelihood of becoming highly IS burnout employees. Therefore, understanding the factors causing MIS student burnout became a critical issue, because measuring student burnout may help to indicate student learning performance and potential college dropouts, as similar studies of professional burnout help to identify worker's working intention or intention to leave their jobs (McCarthy, Pretty, & Catano, 1990). Specifically, MIS students should simultaneously learn diverse knowledge and skills (management courses and computer courses) during their school careers. If MIS students have a high burnout in their computer related courses learning, they have a very greater percentage avoiding to be an IS professionals after their graduation. Most previous research regarding college students' burnout focused on the descriptive and demographic analysis (Gold et al., 1989; McCarthy et al., 1990). The studies of Meier and Schmeck (1985) and Pines et al. (1981) were focused on student burnout instruments measured and verified. Yet, very limited and scarce evidence existed supporting the presence of burnout in technical-vocational college students, especially for the skill-oriented MIS students.

Currently, the higher education systems in Taiwan have five-year junior college, two-year technical-vocational junior college, two-year technical-vocational senior college, four-year technical-vocational university, and four-year general university as shown in Table 1. Five-year junior college and two-year technical-vocational junior college do not lead to a bachelor degree. Two-year technical-vocational senior college, four-year technical-vocational university, and four-year general university have lead to a bachelor degree. When students graduated from junior high school and passed the five-year junior college entrance examination they are entitled to study at a five-year junior college. Students that have graduated from senior technical-vocational high school and passed the four-year and two-year technical-vocational junior college entrance examination can study at four-year technical-vocational universities or two-year technical-vocational junior colleges. Students that have graduated from two-year technical-vocational junior colleges and passed the two-year technical-vocational senior college entrance examination can study at two-year technical-vocational senior colleges. Students that have graduated from general senior high school and passed the university entrance examination can study at a four-year general university.

Within these higher education systems, two-year technical-vocational junior and senior colleges are very special school system because these two kinds of school systems have only a two-year learning period. Sources of MIS students in two-year junior and senior technical-vocational colleges have a very diverse curriculum because they may not graduate from MIS major in senior vocational high school or two-year technical-vocational colleges. The aim of two-year technical-vocational colleges for MIS students is to train students to possess computer capabilities and management concepts during their school learning period. Students should finish all courses within two years. After they have graduated, they should be well-prepared displaying the necessary computer skills and management domain knowledge and are fully capable and ready to enter the job market. However, owing to the two-year time constraints, the courses are very complicated to design at these two types of school systems. Thus, within these two types of school systems MIS students have tight course schedules and tremendous pressure during their school learning periods. Generally, two-year technical-vocational junior and senior college MIS students should take 83 credits which computer related courses are about one-half of total credits within two years respectively, whereas, four-year university technical-vocational students only take 128 credits within four years. If students have failed any courses, two-year technical-vocational college or university MIS students have no time to make-up the failed courses within the two-year time period. They usually cannot graduate on time. Traditionally, two-year college junior and senior MIS students are also one of entry-level sources of IS employees. They should possess the computer capabilities and management concepts after they graduated. If they were to be burnout in the school, they would have a high possibility to be IS burnout employees.

The information, based on the aforesaid explanation, serves to motivate our intention to examine the fact that such inadequate lack of systematic research on MIS student burnout among two-year technical-vocational junior and senior colleges may raise some unanswered questions, such as: what internal and external factors influence MIS student burnout. Maslach et al. (1996) argued that the effects of internal and external variables on professional burnout should be considered. Maslach and Jackson (1985) and Maslach et al. (1996) noted that internal variables such as their level of self-efficacy and role of gender inequality could all impact professionals' burnout. Furthermore, Maslach et al. (1996) also suggested that external variables such as social support could influence professional burnout. Two questions will be addressed in this study. First, what is the relationship between social support, sex-role, and self-efficacy and their impact on student burnout? Second, what is the relationship between social support and sex-role on self-efficacy?

Below we review the existing research concerning social support, self-efficacy, and sex-role on student burnout in order to develop our hypotheses model.