Uncovering the mediating role of engagement in the relationship between burnout and academic achievement: Evidence from Chinese senior high school students’ English learning

Abstract

With the continuous development of positive psychology in the field of education, increasing attention has been given to students’ academic emotions. However, in the domain of foreign language education, the relationships among students’ negative academic emotions (such as burnout), learning engagement, and academic achievement remain to be further explored. This study examined the inherent relationships among these three variables, involving 640 Chinese high school students as participants. It adopted a mixed-methods approach that integrates both quantitative and qualitative analyses. Results of the structural equational model (SEM) indicated that, while no dimension of English learning burnout (ELB) directly predicted academic achievement, behavioral engagement was the sole significant positive predictor among the engagement dimensions. Additionally, exhaustion and demotivation negatively impacted behavioural and cognitive engagement, with demotivation exhibiting a pervasive effect across all three dimensions. Mediation analysis further demonstrated that each sub-dimension of English learning burnout negatively affected academic achievement through the mediating role of behavioral engagement. The qualitative analysis in this study provided supplementary explanations for the quantitative findings. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for Chinese high school English teachers to enhance students’ motivation for English learning and their levels of engagement.