Psychological impact of COVID-19 anxiety on learning burnout in Vietnamese students

Abstract

It is becoming clear that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating psychological impact on Vietnamese society, but little is known about its impact on Vietnamese students. In the current study, we evaluated whether anxiety of contracting COVID-19 is related to students’ learning burnout. Specifically, we tested two months into the pandemic whether this anxiety is linked to pupils’ learning exhaustion and cynicism. The data includes 652 Vietnamese students (56.3% girls) with M_age = 12.6 (SD = 1.0). The data were collected using a self-report questionnaire during an online survey. Two Multiple Linear Regression Analyses tested the associations between COVID-19 anxiety and learning-related exhaustion (Model 1) and learning-related cynicism (Model 2), controlling for general depression, gender and grade. Results show that COVID-19 anxiety significantly and uniquely links to learning-related cynicism but not learning exhaustion, suggesting that the pandemic affects Vietnamese students’ ability to thrive through education.