Factors affecting student burnout and academic achievement in multiple enrollment programs in Taiwan’s technical–vocational colleges
Introduction
There are five categories of higher education systems in Taiwan, which include 5-year junior college, 2-year technical–vocational junior college, 4-year technical–vocational university, 2-year technical–vocational university/senior college, and 4-year general university. However, the 5-year junior college and 2-year technical–vocational junior college do not lead to a bachelor’s degree. The 4-year general university, 4-year technical–vocational university, and 2-year technical–vocational university/senior college lead to a bachelor’s degree. The detailed structure is shown in Fig. 1. When students graduate from junior high school and pass the 5-year junior college entrance examination, they are entitled to study at a 5-year junior college. Students who have graduated from technical–vocational senior high school and passed the 4- and 2-year technical–vocational junior college entrance examination can study at 4-year technical–vocational universities or 2-year technical–vocational junior colleges. Students who have graduated from 2-year technical–vocational university/junior college and passed the 2-year technical–vocational senior college/university entrance examination can study at 2-year technical–vocational universities/senior colleges. Students who have graduated from general senior high school and passed the university entrance examination can study at a 4-year general university.
Briefly speaking, there are two types of joint university entrance examination. One caters to general junior high school students who intend to study at a general university, and the other accommodates technical–vocational senior high school students who intend to study at a technical–vocational university/college. Traditionally, the joint university entrance examination has been the exclusive route to enter a university or college for 44 years from 1954 until 1998 in Taiwan. The joint university entrance examination has been considered the fairest and most prevalent test medium appropriate for local needs, regardless of whether it is for general university or technical–vocational university/college. It was an impartial, non-discriminative system that offered equal opportunities to every Taiwanese student with no consideration of physical, financial, or superior social status. The only criterion was that a student had to pass the joint university entrance examination. However, true to traditional beliefs and deeply engraved, through the ages, in the grain of Chinese national identity and conscious, there is a deep-rooted principle in the mind of the Chinese people that “there is nothing more noble and enriching than to gain profound intellectually stimulated knowledge through studying”. As a result, diplomas and certificates have become extremely important in Chinese society.
In order to enter a good school, performance in the joint university entrance examination was of vital importance. The students’ performance was closely related to the teachers’ performance in class. Unfortunately, this led to an unhealthy, unbalanced, and abnormal situation in the total education process, where too much emphasis was placed on primarily coaching students to pass and perform well in the entrance examination. It also placed a heavy burden on students and parents alike. The academic pressure on students led to enormous pressure. Attending so-called private cram schools and acquiring personal tutors after normal school hours and at great cost became the norm rather than the exception. This led to an outcry from the public at large, politicians, and the mass media, who revolted against this practice. To counter the criticism and satisfy the public demand for action, the education authorities initiated a new system. This new initiative became top priority and was aimed at liberalizing the nation’s education system, enhancing the learning culture and positively relieving the pressure on the students caused by the joint entrance examination designed for entrance into a 4-year general university, 4-year technical–vocational university or 2-year technical–vocational university/senior or junior college.
Therefore, in 1998, the Ministry of Education became actively involved in designing a new form of joint entrance examination university school enrollment system to relieve student stress and pressure, and by doing so increase students’ academic achievement. The student enrollment method has thus been changed to include three distinctive categories, namely, admission via recommendation and screening, admission application and examination distribution. Consequently, we would like to analyze and research the impacts on student learning condition and performance of this new type of entrance system. Burnout and academic achievement will be studied under multiple enrollment programs.
The impact of multiple enrollment programs has been a focal point for the media, public, educators and researchers on general universities since 1998. However, little attention has been devoted to exploring student burnout and its antecedents, especially to examining student burnout in technical–vocational college/university under the multiple enrollment programs. In reality, public and private technical–vocational colleges/universities provide over half of the higher education needs of Taiwan. To date, there are in total about 151 (still increasing) public and private general, technical–vocational and other types of colleges or universities (Ministry of Education Site, 2003). There are currently 47 general universities and 92 technical–vocational colleges/universities, including both public and private ones (Ministry of Education Site, 2003). The number of technical–vocational colleges/universities is nearly double that of general universities. From the above statistical data, it can be seen that technical–vocational colleges/universities have the highest percentage in Taiwan. The impacts of multiple enrollment programs on technical–vocational colleges/universities should not be ignored. For this reason, the technical–vocational college/university was chosen as a research field for closer investigation.
The main purpose of this research is to examine student burnout and academic achievement under these three types of multiple enrollment programs in technical–vocational colleges. In addition, this research project attempts to employ the conservation of resource (COR) theory and social cognitive theory (SCT) as a basis, to examine the differences between the factors influencing the burnout phenomenon and academic achievement of technical–vocational college students under multiple enrollment programs. A COR theory has been presented as a model for understanding the nature and influence of all levels of stress (Hobfoll, 1988, Hobfoll, 1989, Hobfoll et al., 1995). SCT (Bandura, 1977b, Bandura, 1978, Bandura, 1982, Bandura, 1986) is a widely accepted and empirically validated model of individual behavior. In COR, social support and course load are two important environmental factors that explain the burnout phenomenon (Jackson et al., 1986). Self-efficacy, the belief that one has the capability to perform a particular task, is an important dimension in SCT. Hence, two major factors of burnout among technical–vocational college students were studied in this research. These include three external environmental factors, viz. social support, course load, and fairness, and one internal factor, namely self-efficacy. The Maslash burnout inventory (MBI)—general burnout scale modified by Meier and Schmeck (1985) is used to measure burnout by having students complete a questionnaire. A more general contribution is to examine the predictive power of student burnout in explaining student academic achievement. It is anticipated that the results will provide some help or indications in understanding the performance and application of multiple enrollment programs.
Section snippets
Multiple enrollment programs
In 1998, the Ministry of Education became actively involved in designing multiple enrollment programs for university school systems in an attempt to reduce student stress and provide students with more opportunities to learn and choose the school or field they are interested in. Meanwhile, it provides chances for schools to establish their own identity and have autonomy in selecting suitable students, and also provides a mechanism to balance the development of general high school and high
Conservation of resource theory
The COR theory may be applied as a theoretical model that explains the etiology of burnout and the processes likely to accompany chronic work-related stress (Schaufeli et al., 1993). COR has thus been developed as a general stress theory that helps delineate both why certain circumstances are stressful and the process of people’s reactions to stressful circumstances (Hobfoll, 1988, Hobfoll, 1989, Hobfoll et al., 1995). A basis of the COR theory is that individuals strive to obtain and maintain
Data collection and samples
The target samples for this study were freshmen in technical–vocational college, who had just experienced the detrimental effects of examination under the multiple enrollment programs in Taiwan. In order to avoid sampling bias between city and rural schools, the target samples were stratified by area to include the north, center, south, and east of Taiwan. One to three schools were chosen as the sampling target, depending on the density of schools in each area. Therefore, three schools were
Results
Most of the respondents’ parental incomes fall within the low-income family bracket, about 76% of the total samples (under 370,000 NT$ and between 370,000 and under 990,000 NT dollars per year; the exchange rate of US$ and NT$ is about 1:34.14). Parents with a primary school, junior high and senior high school education made up the bulk, with a high percentage of about 89% of the total samples. Additionally, the t-test was also used to examine the differences between student burnout and
Discussion and implications
Three research questions were posed at the outset of this study: (1) to examine student burnout and academic achievement respectively under these three types of multiple enrollment programs in technical–vocational colleges. Meanwhile, (2) this research also attempts to examine the moderating effect of multiple enrollment programs among the influencing (determining) factors for burnout and academic achievement. Finally, (3) does student burnout significantly affect academic achievement? These
Conclusion
Overall, the pattern of reported results is partially consistent with those presented in other published burnout studies. Multiple enrollment programs did affect student burnout and academic achievement. This result is consistent with the policy of the Ministry of Education, which has been actively involved in designing the multiple enrollment programs to reduce student stress and to improve learning performance. This result provides some indications or implications for educational bureaus to
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan, ROC, under Grant No. NSC-90-2511-S-167-001.
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