ABSTRACT
This study's purpose is to examine whether resilience, conceptualized by Connor and Davidson (2003) as one's capacity to persevere and rebound under adversity, was a potential mitigating and/or moderating factor in the dynamic between both psychological distress and academic burnout, and student attrition. We concurrently distributed a survey containing a series of psychometric instruments to a convenience sample of 1,119 students pursuing various business majors at four geographically diverse U.S. universities. Via structural equations modeling analysis, we measured the associations between psychological distress, academic burnout, and departure intentions, and investigated whether student resilience levels are associated with lower distress, burnout, and departure intentions levels. The results indicated significant positive associations between psychological distress and each of the elements of academic burnout, and significant positive associations between the academic burnout elements and departure intentions. However, while resilience did not moderate those associations, it did attenuate them through its direct negative associations with both psychological distress and the cynicism and academic inefficacy elements of academic burnout. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for business educators seeking to enhance individual resilience levels as a coping strategy to combat voluntary student turnover, and better prepare students for the demands of the workplace.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study was to translate and validate the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale for Portuguese exercisers. In addition, we sought to analyze gender invariance. We collected data from two independent samples of Portuguese respondents-a calibration sample with 316 participants and a validation sample with 632 participants. Results from confirmatory factor analysis supported the original six-factor model in both the calibration sample, χ2(237) = 471.814, χ2/df = 1.99; B-S p < .001, Comparative Fit Index = .935, Tucker-Lewis Index =.924, standard mean root square residual = .047, root mean square error of approximation = .057 (90% confidence interval = [.050, .065]), and the validation sample, χ2(237) = 571.796, χ2/df = 2.41; B-S p < .001, Comparative Fit Index = .948, Tucker-Lewis Index = .940, standard mean root square residual = .038, root mean square error of approximation = .047 (90% confidence interval = [.042, .052]). Moreover, our analysis revealed acceptable internal consistency, convergent and discriminant validity of the translated version, and invariance between the two samples and between genders, as differences across latent means showed that magnitude effects were trivial between samples and between male and female exercisers. These results support the use of the adapted scale among both male and female exercisers.
