Unravelling Time in Higher Education: Exploring the Mediating Role of Psychological Capital in Burnout and Academic Engagement

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article addresses a current and highly relevant issue, namely academic burnout. The authors' finding of a relationship over time is significant, adding value by suggesting that educational institutions could take such studies into account when designing their student support programs.

However, I would like to point out that the introduction and discussion sections could be more concise and avoid excessive explanations when presenting each of the relevant factors of the study. It could focus on describing how it academically affects without delving into the details of how the term originated (i.e. COR theory), simply referring to articles where the rest of the information is detailed.

Additionally, greater clarity is needed in the phrase on lines 48-51: “In Maroco and Assunção's study on students' levels of burnout and engagement across several Portuguese universities, although in most cases the average level of engagement was found to be above the mid-point of the evaluation scale, the levels of burnout were equally above the mid-point of the scale used”.

Author Response

The article addresses a current and highly relevant issue, namely academic burnout. The authors' finding of a relationship over time is significant, adding value by suggesting that educational institutions could take such studies into account when designing their student support programs.

However, I would like to point out that the introduction and discussion sections could be more concise and avoid excessive explanations when presenting each of the relevant factors of the study. It could focus on describing how it academically affects without delving into the details of how the term originated (i.e. COR theory), simply referring to articles where the rest of the information is detailed.

Authors answer’: Although a detailed explanation of the theoretical background is essential to justify the research ideas, we agree that some parts of the text may be theoretically "dense" and we sought to make the explanations more "fluid". The parts of the text that we simplified were:

“Hobfoll's theory⁷ views resources as valuable objects, personal traits, conditions, and energies that help individuals achieve specific outcomes. Individuals vary in the resources they possess and value due to personal experiences^26. People are naturally driven to protect and acquire resources, becoming especially motivated when facing potential threats or losses. Losses impact individuals more than equivalent gains, leading to stress if resources cannot be maintained or increased⁷. This motivates individuals to invest their available resources to avoid losses. Those with more resources can invest more effectively, creating a "gain spiral" where they continue to acquire resources²⁶. Conversely, losing resources makes it harder to invest remaining ones, leading to a "loss spiral" where continued loss and increased stress occur. Within this framework, Psychological Capital (PsyCap) is seen as a personal characteristic that helps individuals cope with stress^27. Thus, a student's resource level influences their ability to handle stress. However, increased pressure and demands in academia can reduce resources, particularly Psychological Capital (PsyCap), thereby affecting students' well-being.^28”

We also cut some sentences with explanations in the discussion section.

Additionally, greater clarity is needed in the phrase on lines 48-51: “In Maroco and Assunção's study on students' levels of burnout and engagement across several Portuguese universities, although in most cases the average level of engagement was found to be above the mid-point of the evaluation scale, the levels of burnout were equally above the mid-point of the scale used”.

Authors answer’: We agree that the sentence was confused, and we change it. We wrote:

“In Maroco and Assunção's¹³ study on students' levels of burnout and engagement across several Portuguese universities, it was observed that students experienced a significant degree of burnout, even though they were engaged in their academic work.”

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Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for your submission to Education Sciences.  It was a pleasure to read your paper.

I have a general question/observation, and a few specific comments.

The general question is whether you were able to classify the students in terms of their academic performance.  It seems likely that getting a bad grade or failing a course will negatively impact PsyCap. The longer the student is in higher education, the greater the chance that they will have received bad grade or fail a course, and one would therefore expect PsyCap to go down for such students. On the other hand, students who consistently perform well may not have to use any of their resources.  If you were able to divide students into high-performing and low-performing students, you might be able to tease this difference out.  

You may not be able to do this with your current data set, and if you cannot, it may at least be worth mentioning this in the section on limitations of the current study.

Here are the more detailed comments:

1.  Since you present Engagement as the opposite of burn-out, it seems to me that H2a and H2b are in fact the same hypothesis.  The same would apply to H3a and H3b.  Can you clarify how they differ?

2.  Can you clarify how the gender distribution of your sample reflects (or does not reflect) the gender distribution in the Portugese undergraduate population, as well as for the distribution over the years of study? You mention that the sample may not be representative but you may at least be able to say something more about this if you compare the make-up of your sample in terms of gender and years of study with the make-up in the university population in general.

3.  Table 1 needs some explanation.  I am not sure what B, SE and CR mean in the context of time spent in higher education.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Most of the paper is well-written but there are some linguistic issues in lines 278-288 that need to be fixed.

Author Response

Thank you for your submission to Education Sciences.  It was a pleasure to read your paper.

I have a general question/observation, and a few specific comments.

The general question is whether you were able to classify the students in terms of their academic performance.  It seems likely that getting a bad grade or failing a course will negatively impact PsyCap. The longer the student is in higher education, the greater the chance that they will have received bad grade or fail a course, and one would therefore expect PsyCap to go down for such students. On the other hand, students who consistently perform well may not have to use any of their resources.  If you were able to divide students into high-performing and low-performing students, you might be able to tease this difference out.  

You may not be able to do this with your current data set, and if you cannot, it may at least be worth mentioning this in the section on limitations of the current study.

Authors answer’: Dear Reviewer we agree that classify students in terms of their performance will be very relevant in this study. However, as you anticipated, we do not have this opportunity in this study. As recommend we add some information about this on section of limitations. We wrote:

“Finally, it will be relevant to understand in future studies the relationship between these same variables over time and students' academic performance. One research question to explore would be the impact of academic performance on PsyCap and well-being over time.”

 

Here are the more detailed comments:

Since you present Engagement as the opposite of burn-out, it seems to me that H2a and H2b are in fact the same hypothesis.  The same would apply to H3a and H3b.  Can you clarify how they differ?

Authors answer’: We agree with the Reviewer's view that it is not necessary to split the hypotheses into a and b, considering burnout and academic engagement as opposites. Therefore, we redid the text, including only one hypothesis 2 and one hypothesis 3.

2. Can you clarify how the gender distribution of your sample reflects (or does not reflect) the gender distribution in the Portugese undergraduate population, as well as for the distribution over the years of study? You mention that the sample may not be representative but you may at least be able to say something more about this if you compare the make-up of your sample in terms of gender and years of study with the make-up in the university population in general.

Authors answer’: Yes, we search some statistics, and we add information regarding the gender distribution higher education students in Portugal. We added:

“However, it is important to note that according to higher education statistics in Portugal66, this sample reflects the Portuguese reality regarding gender distribution, that is, there are more women attending higher education compared to men.”

 

3. Table 1 needs some explanation.  I am not sure what B, SE and CR mean in the context of time spent in higher education.

Authors answer’: We understand the Reviewer point. The time spent in the course was introduced as an independent variable and was measured based on the number of years students had been in higher education, with the following categories: 1 – less than one year, 2 – one year, 3 – two years, 4 – three years, 5 – four years, 6 – five or more years. The table shows the predictive effect of course duration both on the mediator variable and on the dependent variables, as well as the predictive value of the mediator variable on the dependent variables. We added a note in the table where we explain how we measured the time spent in higher education.

 

Most of the paper is well-written but there are some linguistic issues in lines 278-288 that need to be fixed.

 

Authors answer’: We fix some issues in the paragraph mentioned. We wrote:

“Data collection for this study was conducted as part of a research project on Stress and Well-Being at University XXXX during the spring of 2021. To gather data, a questionnaire was emailed to students from various faculties at the University. The email explained the study's objectives and invited their participation. The questionnaire was created using a digital platform, and responses were both voluntary and anonymous. No incentives, monetary or otherwise, were offered to participate in the project. Prior to participation, written consent was obtained, outlining the study's aim, methods, potential risks, benefits, confidentiality measures, and the voluntary nature of involvement. This ensured participants had all the necessary information to make an informed decision. Those who consented then completed the questionnaire.”

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