The role of educational track in adolescents' school burnout: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND Transition from comprehensive school to later educational tracks is challenging for many adolescents. The present three-wave longitudinal study conducted in Finland considers this issue from the perspective of school burnout. AIMS The study investigated the extent to which school-related burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of inadequacy) changes during the transition from comprehensive school to an academic or vocational track. SAMPLE The participants of the present study were 658 ninth graders, who filled in questionnaires twice during their final term of comprehensive school and once after the transition to post-comprehensive schooling. METHODS The participants filled in the school burnout inventory and supplied background information on gender and academic achievement. The data have analysed by latent growth curve modelling. RESULTS The results showed that adolescents on an academic track experienced more exhaustion at school than those on a vocational track. Moreover, among adolescents on an academic track both the level of cynicism and inadequacy at school increased across time. In turn, among adolescents on a vocational track inadequacy at school decreased across time while cynicism increased before the school transition and decreased thereafter. Girls experienced more overall school burnout than boys, and adolescents whose academic achievement was lower experienced a higher level of burnout than adolescents who did better at school. CONCLUSIONS The results support the stage-environment fit theory according to which the nature of the environments in academic and vocational education are more important than the transition per se for changes in how adolescents think and feel about school (see Eccles & Midgley, 1989).