Student burnout has been one of the most pertinent foci of discussion around Finnish adolescent’s’ wellbeing since the turn of the millennium (e.g., Salmela-Aro et al., 2009). Even if the onset of the growing unwell-being coincides with young people’s increasing dependence on social media and concern for various global problems, the nametag set on the phenomenon has been school burnout. The term has been further accentuated since a 2018 reform of higher education student admission, which shifted the emphasis from an earlier entrance examination-based policy to admitting half of new students based on their results in the national end-of-upper-secondary-school matriculation examination. The reform is seen to increase students’ stress both during their studies and in the matriculation examination (see Kupiainen et al., 2016).  

The current study is part of a wider research project on the impact of the 2018 reform on upper secondary schools and on students’ study choices and wellbeing. In the present paper, we explore the validity of the emphasis on the school as the basis of student burnout (see also Kosola, 2022). For that, we enriched the instrument measuring burnout with outside-of-school topics such as climate change and the current geo-political situation expected to darken young people’s views on the world around them.

Burnout was first diagnosed in care and other human service occupations, and primarily attributed to the emotional exhaustion caused by the work (Maslach et al., 2001). Originally an ill-defined empirical concept, burnout was soon found to comprise three core dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism and reduced efficacy. The construct was soon adopted also for upper secondary and tertiary level students. While adult burnout was seen to be fueled by the rapidly changing and increasing demands of working life, students’ increasing ill-being needed a differing base for explanation. After all, unlike employees threatened by burnout under demands coming from above, students are living through a period where the focus is on the process of building their own lives. By emphasizing this difference, we do not wish to imply that the expectations set on young people in today’s world – or even school – might not feel overpowering for many. However, not all researchers in the field are disposed to use the term burnout to describe the stress and psychosomatic symptoms ailing today’s youth (e.g., Moksnes et al., 2010; Schraml et al., 2011). Regardless the terminology used, researchers in the Nordic welfare states are especially active in the field. This can be found surprising in view of the Nordic comprehensive education systems’ emphasis on equality and wellbeing with a stress on supporting everyone’s learning.                

Contrary to most other countries, the best school-related trend data in Finland does not regard learning outcomes but student health and wellbeing (THL; Vainikainen et al., 2017). Since the 2018 reform of higher education student admission, upper secondary students’ wellbeing and burnout have been an especially acute topic of discussion. By increasing the role of the matriculation examination in student admission, the reform is seen to increase students’ stress regarding both their course choices during upper secondary education and, subsequently, their choices for the subject-specific exams they will include in their matriculation examination.

In this paper, we will investigate students and teachers’ views on possible reasons for the much discussed student burnout (a ready-provided list covering school and out-of-school related factors and general issues). Secondly, we will relate students’ views to their course choices and attainment, and to the choice of exams they plan to include in their matriculation examination. Thirdly, we will look at student burnout through an adapted 9-item School Burnout Inventory covering the three dimension of exhaustion, cynicism and experienced inadequacy.  

The data is from an ongoing (2022–2023) study on the impact of the 2018 student admission reform on upper secondary schools and students. The data comprise questionnaires for students, teachers, principals and guidance counsellors, register data on the sampled (N = 8,000) students‘ study choices and attainment, and additional focus-group interviews of students and teachers in five upper secondary schools. In the present paper, we will focus on the students’ and teachers’ views on student wellbeing and burnout in their survey responses (quantitative and open response) and the interviews. The survey presented all four respondent groups with the same set of statements regarding possible reasons for student burnout. In addition, students were presented with a 9-item SBI. Reflecting the cross-sectional survey data, the results will be mainly presented at the descriptive level, using ANOVA for analyses between groups (e.g., gender, students vs. teachers, low vs. high achievers) comparisons. The interview data will be used at this point to just provide ‘real-life’ examples of how the students and teachers see and talk about student burnout (results of the comparison of students’ and teachers’ views were used as a basis for the focus-group discussions).

The preliminary data (4,000 students, 120 teachers) support the view that school-related reasons are seen central for student burnout: stress caused by the matriculation examination, the demands of upper secondary studies, and stress caused by university admission (mean 5.50/5.29, 5.74/5.31 and 5.14/5.80, respectively, for students and teachers on a 1–7 Likert scale). The groups also agreed on the role of lack of sleep (5.26/5.98) with teachers stressing this more. Teachers and students’ views differed most regarding students’ inability to free themselves from continuous social media use and digital gaming (6.06/4.13 and 5.66/3.43). Somewhat surprisingly, teachers saw climate change as a much stronger reason for student burnout than students did (4.80/3.58). The current upper secondary student data conformed only weakly to the predicted structure of the SBI, used in Finland earlier in tertiary education (Salmela-Aro, 2009). Reasons for this will be further explored in the presentation with full data. There was, however, a statistically significant gender difference in all dimensions with girls showing higher levels of exhaustion, cynicism and experienced inadequacy than boys (mean 4.64/3.58, 3.65/3.29 and 4.51/3.64, respectively, p<.001, ƞ2=.115, .011 and .073).

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