Motivational Goals, Needs, and Passion for Graduate Education: A Longitudinal Examination of the Prediction of Academic Burnout, Well-being, and Health
2021-10-22
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Motivational Goals, Needs, and Passion for Graduate Education: A Longitudinal Examination of the Prediction of Academic Burnout, Well-being, and Health
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2021-10-22
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There is a growing interest in addressing graduate students’ health and well-being, as recent survey research suggests that rates of stress and mental illness may be particularly high among this population. Recent cross-sectional research has begun to examine correlates of motivation, burnout, well-being, and health among university students. Using the dualistic model of passion (Vallerand 2010; 2015) and self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017) as motivational frameworks, the current study investigated the predictive utility of passion (harmonious and obsessive), aspiration (intrinsic and extrinsic), and psychological need satisfaction/frustration (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) for burnout, well-being, health-related behaviors, and self-neglect. As part of a larger, longitudinal study, two online surveys were administered to graduate students at the beginning and end of their first semester in graduate school, gathering 74 completed responses from both time points (90.5% White, 64.9% female). Despite most graduate students reporting above average well-being, there was a general trend for indicators of well-being to decline across the semester and indicators of ill-being to increase. Predictors of a number of psychological and health measures were examined using hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Two models were examined: 1) need frustration, obsessive passion, and extrinsic aspiration were proposed to predict maladaptive health and well-being outcomes, and 2) need satisfaction, harmonious passion, and intrinsic aspiration were proposed to predict adaptive health and well-being outcomes. Hypotheses were partially supported with need satisfaction and need frustration being the most consistent predictors in their respective models. It seems that entering graduate school with higher levels of need satisfaction is predictive of lower levels of sedentary behavior, physical symptoms, negative affect, and anxious and depressive symptoms, and higher ratings of well-being at the end of the first semester. In comparison, graduate students in this sample entering the semester with higher levels of need frustration reported experiencing higher levels of cynicism, negative affect, and anxious and depressive symptoms at the end of the first semester. Based on previous research, we predicted that harmonious passion would be predictive of higher levels of well-being and health and obsessive passion would be predictive of poorer well-being and health. Although harmonious passion was protective against cynicism accompanying burnout, it was not predictive of adaptive outcomes as expected. As hypothesized, obsessive passion was predictive of poorer health behaviors (i.e., more weekly sedentary time and poorer diet quality) but was not predictive of other metrics of ill-being as expected. Intrinsic aspiration did not predict well-being but instead predicted higher self-neglect behaviors, whereas extrinsic aspiration predicted more anxious and depressive symptoms. Because this is one of the first longitudinal studies exploring intraindividual predictors of graduate student health and well-being, more research is needed to more clearly understand the factors associated with students’ well-being. The current findings suggest that graduate programs and universities may want to consider ways to cultivate increased basic psychological need supportive environments as a possible strategy to optimize student functioning.
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A Plan B Research Project submitted to the faculty of the University of Minnesota by Hannah Appleseth in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, October 2021.
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University of Minnesota Duluth Psychology Department
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