Investigating the relationship between social support and school burnout in Turkish middle school students: The mediating role of hope

Abstract

The literature has documented the relationships between school burnout and mental health, academic achievement, and overall quality of life. Furthermore, hope and social support have been identified as important factors for coping with stress and have been found to be negatively related to undesirable emotional states. The present study aimed to examine the effects of demographic variables, social support, and hope on school burnout in Turkish middle school students. More importantly, hope was investigated as a possible mediator of the relationship between social support and school burnout. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to investigate the effects of social support and hope on school burnout. Additionally, a bootstrapping procedure was employed to test mediational effects of hope on the effects of social support. The results revealed that, after controlling demographic variables, social support and hope negatively predicted school burnout. Mediation analyses showed that hope significantly and partially mediated the link between social support and school burnout. Specifically, students with higher levels of social support reported having higher levels of hope, which in turn was associated with lower levels of school burnout. The results and limitations are discussed along with implications for future research and educational planning.